[Xerte-dev] Re: Workspace Layout

Fri Jul 17 14:09:36 BST 2015

No strong argument here either especially as we've always had that create
pnale on the right.

Not unrelated to all this I've had some suggestions that the language used
is inconsistent e.g. in different areas of text in the workspace and
properties panels we refer to Projects (or LO's as we know them) as
Projects, Files and Templates e.g. see everything in red in the list below.

My suggestion is that we make everything in red say project. In some case
this will need to take account of singular or plural e.g. 

People who subscribe to the feeds will see new content as it as added to the
feeds. 

Would need to change to:

People who subscribe to the feeds will see new projects as they are added to
the feeds.

Tom: I'm assuming this is best done via the translation tool?

I'm happy to undertake this if we agree and you can provide me with access.

In workspace:

Project name: my test

This file was created on

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From: xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
[mailto:xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Fay Cross
Sent: 17 July 2015 13:11
To: For Xerte technical developers
Subject: [Xerte-dev] Re: Workspace Layout

I would layout the panels in the opposite direction but for the same reason
as you... when you log in for the first time what do you want to do? Create
a project - so that should be on the left. You can only edit projects once
you've already created some.  

I don't think it's all particularly confusing the way it is now though so
aren't going to argue too hard for this!

  _____  

From: xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
[xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] on behalf of Julian Tenney
[Julian.Tenney at nottingham.ac.uk]
Sent: 17 July 2015 13:00
To: For Xerte technical developers
Subject: [Xerte-dev] Re: Workspace Layout

Do we want to address this layout stuff before the release? 

Personally I would like to. I think we can improve on what we have. But this
is rapidly growing arms and legs as a problem, and based on my experience
this morning, I am not going to be the best person to work it all through.

For what it's worth, I prefer the new projects stuff on the right, because
in the left-to-right information flow, the user's projects are presented to
the user first, which is most likely what they want. The workspace is
generally more important to me than the create panel. This is holy war stuff
though, I appreciate that!

From: xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
[mailto:xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Fay Cross
Sent: 17 July 2015 12:45
To: For Xerte technical developers
Subject: [Xerte-dev] Re: Workspace Layout

I think it would make sense to have create new project stuff on the left
instead

  _____  

From: xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
[xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] on behalf of Ron Mitchell
[ronm at mitchellmedia.co.uk]
Sent: 17 July 2015 12:41
To: 'For Xerte technical developers'
Subject: [Xerte-dev] Re: Workspace Layout

While we're talking about possible changes it occurred to me there might be
a more radical change that sort of follows the workflow.

Step 1. Create a new project goes to the left

Step 2. Manage/edit projects goes center

Step 3. Project info goes right and is collapsible

Probably too radical given what we've always had but just a thought!

Also by coincidence copied an old install from one server to another
yesterday and was reminded what we used to have and now looks ancient!...

From: xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
[mailto:xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Fay Cross
Sent: 17 July 2015 12:29
To: For Xerte technical developers
Subject: [Xerte-dev] Re: Workspace Layout

Or, if one of the problems is that the left panel has to be quite wide to
fit the buttons on, could we use icons for buttons like in the editor
(delete, duplicate, publish...) instead of traditional buttons?

  _____  

From: xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
[xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] on behalf of Fay Cross
[Fay.Cross at nottingham.ac.uk]
Sent: 17 July 2015 12:20
To: For Xerte technical developers
Subject: [Xerte-dev] Re: Workspace Layout

I was wondering if the centre panel could be merged with the left one some
how rather than being separate  

  _____  

From: xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
[xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] on behalf of Julian Tenney
[Julian.Tenney at nottingham.ac.uk]
Sent: 17 July 2015 12:14
To: For Xerte technical developers
Subject: [Xerte-dev] Re: Workspace Layout

Sorting the layout is still problematic.

I'm starting to think the central panel is creating more layout issues than
the usability it resolves. Should we consider either rethinking where you
get the summary information from, and losing that central panel?

I would like to be able to 

-          Put the buttons in the header of the left panel; put the sort and
search in the footer.

-          Insist that the left panel can never get to narrow to display
those correctly

-          Perhaps the project templates panel should always be a fixed
width, let the projects pane take the rest.

Is this worth talking through and getting some agreement before we start
changing anything else? Time is running through my fingers here and I'm not
achieving very much.

From: xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
[mailto:xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Julian Tenney
Sent: 17 July 2015 12:03
To: For Xerte technical developers
Subject: [Xerte-dev] Re: Workspace Layout

Duh.

From: xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
[mailto:xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Tom Reijnders
Sent: 17 July 2015 11:58
To: For Xerte technical developers
Subject: [Xerte-dev] Re: Workspace Layout

Has to be caching. It fires for me.

Op 17-7-2015 om 12:56 schreef Julian Tenney:

Which is where I've worked my way to, but still can't get this alert to fire

From: xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
[mailto:xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Tom Reijnders
Sent: 17 July 2015 11:52
To: For Xerte technical developers
Subject: [Xerte-dev] Re: Workspace Layout

Strange, because it's really called on line 609
Caching?

Op 17-7-2015 om 12:48 schreef Julian Tenney:

From: xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
[mailto:xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Julian Tenney
Sent: 17 July 2015 11:47
To: For Xerte technical developers
Subject: [Xerte-dev] Re: Workspace Layout

Yeah, I found it, not sure what happened there. If I make the first line of
that function an alert("setting"); it never fires (at least I never see the
alert).

Where do I set the initial sizes / percentages, and a minimum width?

From: xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
[mailto:xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Tom Reijnders
Sent: 17 July 2015 11:44
To: For Xerte technical developers
Subject: [Xerte-dev] Re: Workspace Layout

Line 618?

Some of the static values set in setupMainLayout are overridden by
dynamicResize()

Op 17-7-2015 om 12:41 schreef Julian Tenney:

If I search for 'dynamicResize' in  that file, nothing is found.

There appear to be a load of settings for initialising the layout, but
changing them doesn't appear to make any difference to anything, in
setupMainLayout().

From: xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
[mailto:xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Tom Reijnders
Sent: 17 July 2015 11:35
To: For Xerte technical developers
Subject: [Xerte-dev] Re: Workspace Layout

Look at dynamicResize in website_code/scripts/screen_display.js

Op 17-7-2015 om 12:14 schreef Ron Mitchell:

While you're searching ;-) try to find where the extra slash is added which
breaks the bootstrap media links
https://github.com/thexerteproject/xerteonlinetoolkits/issues/352

From: xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
[mailto:xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Julian Tenney
Sent: 17 July 2015 11:06
To: For Xerte technical developers
Subject: [Xerte-dev] Re: Workspace Layout

This is where time just disappears for me trying to do this stuff, I have to
resort to searching for class names in all the files to find references, and
then try and unpick what's doing what and all I want to do is set three
minimum widths and three initial widths. That should be six lines of code,
preferably in the same place, and it should take two minutes to change. Here
I am an hour later.

From: xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
[mailto:xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Fay Cross
Sent: 17 July 2015 11:04
To: For Xerte technical developers
Subject: [Xerte-dev] Re: Workspace Layout

I don't think anything's minified (but I also don't know my way around the
workspace stuff to advise where to change stuff either)

  _____  

From: xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
[xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] on behalf of Julian Tenney
[Julian.Tenney at nottingham.ac.uk]
Sent: 17 July 2015 11:00
To: For Xerte technical developers
Subject: [Xerte-dev] Re: Workspace Layout

Fair dos.

I'm not sure whether the jquery layout stuff has source files, and then a
minified runtime file? I can find some setup info, but changing anything
doesn't change anything.

From: xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
[mailto:xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Ron Mitchell
Sent: 17 July 2015 10:59
To: 'For Xerte technical developers'
Subject: [Xerte-dev] Re: Workspace Layout

Not sure without looking. Busy with something more urgent right now but can
have a look later if you haven't found it by then.

Want to test Fay's additions too but non-xerte stuff to finish first. :-(

From: xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
[mailto:xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Julian Tenney
Sent: 17 July 2015 10:50
To: For Xerte technical developers
Subject: [Xerte-dev] Re: Workspace Layout

Do you know how to set the initial width of the panels?

Can we apply a minimum width to prevent folk making it too narrow? (less
important)

From: xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
[mailto:xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Ron Mitchell
Sent: 17 July 2015 10:36
To: 'For Xerte technical developers'
Subject: [Xerte-dev] Re: Workspace Layout

Aside from closing the 6 issues we currently have on github flagged as v3
release personally I think the most important thing with this is getting a
panel of logos complete with links in the footer somewhere. I don't think
your solution of adding the OSI logo alongside the Apereo logo top right is
the right solution for 2 reasons: 

1. The vast majority of organisations using Xerte that I know of (and I'm
sure Tom echos this) want their own logo either top right or top left. We
have a built-in solution for that but it means one or other of the
'official' logos get removed.

2. Ideally I think we want each of the logos to also link off to the
relevant site pages.

The CSS isn't right, especially the logos, but something like this?

From: xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
[mailto:xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Julian Tenney
Sent: 17 July 2015 09:16
To: For Xerte technical developers
Subject: [Xerte-dev] Re: Workspace Layout

Not sure authoring on phones is viable though? My Asus transformer has 800
px width; the iPad 750, which ought to be plenty. Do we want to progress
looking at this before we release the code? I'm happy to do the work, but
find it a bit slow picking through the code / implications for languages,
and I'm a bit time limited over the next few weeks.

Perhaps make it a 3.1 thing and get concentrate on getting v3.0 out the door

From: xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
[mailto:xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Ron Mitchell
Sent: 16 July 2015 17:06
To: 'For Xerte technical developers'
Subject: [Xerte-dev] Re: Workspace Layout

> How wide is portrait view on a tablet?<

What tablet? ;-)

Attached is a screenshot from my iPad - appears to be 1536px wide in
Portrait view. But I suspect the lowest common denominator is less than
that. e.g.

http://www.websitedimensions.com/pixel/ 

From: xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
[mailto:xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Julian Tenney
Sent: 16 July 2015 16:01
To: For Xerte technical developers
Subject: [Xerte-dev] Re: Workspace Layout

This looks nicer I think (I haven't managed to sort the search box styles
yet). Presumably we can fix a minimum width for the panel? Things get screwy
when it is smaller than about 540 pixels. How wide is portrait view on a
tablet?

I know these are small issues compared to a lot of things we've worked
through lately, but for some users, the look and feel is really important
and sometimes it's just a few small things that really make the difference.

From: xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
[mailto:xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Ron Mitchell
Sent: 16 July 2015 15:38
To: 'For Xerte technical developers'
Subject: [Xerte-dev] Re: Workspace Layout

Not wedded to the search box being at the top.

Although I wondered about the How to, feedback and site links etc being in
an orange menu to the right of the Sort menu and then leaving space for a
centered logo panel in the footer. 

Shouldn't the heading you've added by My Projects and left aligned?

Agree the middle panel should be wider by default and the left panel
narrower to accommodate that.

Something like this mock up?

From: xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
[mailto:xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Julian Tenney
Sent: 16 July 2015 14:54
To: For Xerte technical developers
Subject: [Xerte-dev] Re: Workspace Layout

I was thinking it makes sense to have similar things in proximity. Both the
search and the sort are to do with the workspace items, it makes sense to me
to put these controls together.

Also this is a consistency thing: some tabs have titles, some don't. Either
let's give them all titles, or let's lose the big header on the tabs
altogether maybe: if it's not serving any purpose, why use the space? Also
with this, the headers create a division / barrier between the projects and
the controls to edit / properties etc. Previously these controls were much
more clearly associated with the list of projects in the workspace. Could we
put those buttons in the header perhaps? It does make sense that they are
more closely associated with the project list, as the projects are the
things they control.

By default the project details tab, the central one, doesn't look very nice
as it's very narrow.

This is what we have now, which I like a lot: it's clean / FWS etc.

And this is what we have in x3 which looks nice, but could still do with a
few tweaks to make it really lovely:

From: xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
[mailto:xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Ron Mitchell
Sent: 16 July 2015 14:44
To: 'For Xerte technical developers'
Subject: [Xerte-dev] Re: Workspace Layout

I would leave the search box where it is but make it less wide and put the
title to the left. It seems more inuititive to have the search at the top
rather than the bottom.

From: xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
[mailto:xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Julian Tenney
Sent: 16 July 2015 14:31
To: For Xerte technical developers (xerte-dev at lists.nottingham.ac.uk)
Subject: [Xerte-dev] Workspace Layout

What do you think of the idea of moving the search box down next to the
'Sort your files' drop down, and then we can give all three tabs titles:

Your Projects, Project Details, Project Templates