On 01/20/2013 02:48 PM, Vincent Massol wrote: > > On Jan 20, 2013, at 6:54 PM, Sergiu Dumitriu <[email protected]> wrote: > >> On 01/20/2013 11:31 AM, Vincent Massol wrote: >>> >>> On Jan 20, 2013, at 5:22 PM, Sergiu Dumitriu <[email protected]> wrote: >>> >>>> Hi devs, >>>> >>>> For content pages, the bottom tabs (comments, attachments, history, >>>> information) are very useful features. But does it make sense to keep >>>> those active for very technical pages? >>>> >>>> For example, when viewing details about a tag, (Main/Tags?do=viewTag), >>>> why should people be allowed to comment? They might wrongly think that >>>> they're commenting on a tag, but that's just one complex page that >>>> handles almost everything about tags, so a comment like "this tag has a >>>> typo" doesn't help at all. >>>> >>>> Other pages should have no bottom tabs as well: user directory, blog >>>> category management, the whole scheduler space, share by email... >>>> >>>> While the homepage is a technical page (by default), it does make sense >>>> to leave the comments active, since it's the entry point for every user >>>> (although I think that the messaging system is a better way to send >>>> global messages). >>>> >>>> >>>> IMO, the advantage is that we're hiding actions that are rarely useful, >>>> but could be misused. The disadvantage is that we're breaking the >>>> universality of the UI. >>>> >>>> I'm +1 for hiding, fewer mis-usable features is always better. >>> >>> What if admins want to leave comments on a tech page modified by another >>> admin to ask some question for example? >> >> Sending a message to another admin should be done by... sending a >> message, not by commenting. A direct message will reach a user faster >> than hoping that the target user will stumble upon the page and read the >> comment. > > If you're saying that comments are useless then we should remove comments… :) > >>> Said differently, shouldn't bottom tabs (comments, attachments, etc) be >>> visible to admins for example? This could be achieved by only giving view >>> rights to non admins by default on tech pages. >> >> Tech pages aren't supposed to be viewed only by admins. They're useful >> pages for every user, so they should be visible (view tag cloud, view >> documents tagged with a specific tag, view the list of users, browse >> blog categories...). And not having view right doesn't mean that the >> bottom tabs will be hidden. Just the "add comment", "add attachment" >> actions will be unavailable. > > ok my bad, I meant edit/comment rights, not view rights. > >> And even if adding is disabled, but why should this information be >> visible to any user at all? Forbidding edit still means that a user >> wanting to see which pages are tagged with "needsreview" will see a "Hey >> John, could we have an undo to tag renaming?" comment. What would you >> think if you saw that? > > Again if your point is that comments are useless then we should remove > comments. I think there's a place for comments but it seems your discussion > is actually asking us to define more precisely what is the use case/need for > comments. > > Also I think there's a difference between a Tag Dashboard page which is a > technical page but for end users and a technical page not for end users (i.e. > hidden page). Both will need different solutions I think. So this proposal > should address both needs. > >>> Another use case: imagine I'm an admin and I want to modify a tech page and >>> I'd like to add an attachment to that page… IMO bottom tabs are still >>> useful for admins on tech pages. >> >> This isn't about disabling attachments and comments. The bottom tabs are >> almost an _invitation_ to do stuff. Without them, it is still possible >> to go to the attachments page by clicking on the "Attachments (0)" link >> below the title. De-contextualizing these actions will reduce the risk >> of associating a comment/attachment with a particular view of the >> scripted page. > > If the bottom tabs are removed then those links will also need to be removed > obviously since otherwise a user can click on them... > >>> IMO the issue is different. If a tech is not supposed to be modified by the >>> user then users should have only view rights on the page and NOT edit >>> rights. This will solve this issue. >> >> It's not just about changing, but also about what's visible on the >> screen, and the usefulness of such information vs. the number of WTFs >> generated. > > I don't see any WTF. For me any page that is a end user visible page can have > comments without any WTF. For example on the tag dashboard page, someone may > comment and say "how do I get the tag dashboard to display xxx?" or anything > else in just the same way it's done on any other page. > > In addition I'm actually finding the removal of the bottom tab a huge WTF. As > a user I know what a page is, and if I see those tabs are not present on some > pages, I'll think "what???? WTF? Why is there not tabs there…. > >> Forget about admins, they will still be able to add comments >> and attachments. Think about simple users searching for stuff and seeing >> a comment completely unrelated to what they're searching for. >> >> I forgot to say that this has already been done in a few places, and >> nobody complained about the missing things: >> >> http://dev.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Main/Tags >> http://www.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Main/Search >> http://www.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Invitation/ > > It's not because it's been done that it's an accepted strategy/decision. I've > seen those and I've always been uneasy about them and they've been done > without any strategy whatsoever… > > All I'm saying is that we need this discussion because we need to know 1) if > we want to remove bottom tabs 2) and if so, on which pages. > > ATM it's not clear for me at all. >
No, I'm not saying that comments are useless in general, I'm saying that there are certain pages where they shouldn't be displayed. And I thought I've been clear enough, but apparently not. Let me try again. There are content documents, and there are actions. Some actions are implemented in VM templates, some straight in servlets or Struts actions, some in scripted documents. There are no comments on the Registration page, even though its code comes from a document. We can find a valid use case for comments on the registration page (for example, a user could try to warn others that "Hey, the user name is case sensitive, make sure you choose one accordingly since you'll have to respect the case when logging in"), but that doesn't mean that we should enable comments on the registration page. This an an _action_. People go to the registration page to _do_ something (create a new account), they don't go there to _read_ the registration form in case there's something interesting there. There are many examples of actions where we don't have comments and attachments and the other tabs, and nobody ever asked for them (renaming a document, logging in, editing the page rights, the administration pages, to name just a few). Speaking of administration pages, they are all stored as documents in the wiki. But we don't display their comments and attachments in the administration interface. It is possible to manage their attachments, though, so it's not like they're completely disabled for those pages. And I'm not proposing to disable them. They are valid and have their purpose, but they shouldn't be displayed to users that just want to _do_ stuff, using the action document as it is supposed to be used, as a way to perform actions. They would be cluttering the UI needlessly, and clutter isn't good. A good UI should be clear and simple. Removing as much distractions as possible is good way towards simplicity, and thus usability. Code should be optimized so that the performance is better for the the most used branches. Similarly, the UI should be optimized for the most common use cases. How many users really have to add comments on an action document? How often do administrator really leave important messages to other administrators on wiki documents? Very rarely. Does it make sense for this odd use case to keep the UI cluttered? I doubt that users will be baffled more by the fact that comments are missing on some actions than by the fact that you can actually have comments on actions. While you and I know that "everything is a document" in XWiki, normal users just view actions as actions. Registering is an action, logging in is an action, searching for documents is an action, browsing documents by tags is an action. The fact that logging in is done through several VM templates, Struts actions and internal XWiki components, while browsing tags is done through a wiki document, has no significance to the simple user. For some actions/documents it is clear when the main purpose is for users to _do_ something or to _read_ something. Sure, there's some reading involved in every action, and there's some doing involved in every content read. For some actions it would be debatable in which category they fit better. It would be hard to come up with a clear and precise rule. I can't come up with one. Can you? That's why I'm proposing to just accept that there are documents intended to be used mostly as action pages, and in that case it is OK to hide the bottom tabs. That's all I'm asking. Do you agree or not with this basic choice? As for the actual decision of which documents fall into this category, I think that it's OK to trust the opinion of the committers. We don't need to decide now, we can improve things as we go along. (I agree that the title of the proposal could have been better, since "technical pages" isn't a clear enough term) -- Sergiu Dumitriu http://purl.org/net/sergiu _______________________________________________ devs mailing list [email protected] http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/devs
