launchpad-dev team mailing list archive

[Curtis Hovey <curtis.hovey@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, 2009-08-06 at 10:43 -0500, Edwin Grubbs wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 5, 2009 at 9:09 PM, Curtis Hovey<curtis.hovey@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > HI Edwin.
> >
> > This is a promising start.
> >
> > On Wed, 2009-08-05 at 15:08 -0500, Edwin Grubbs wrote:
> >> Hello,
> >>
> >> I have been tasked with creating mockups of the redesign of the team
> >> index page. Here is the wiki page containing the mockups.
> >>
> >>   https://dev.launchpad.net/TeamIndexPage
> >>
> >> I am interested in any feedback. My main questions are:
> >>   * Is any information missing?
> >>   * Should anything be removed or reorganized?
> >
> > Remove the team Mugshot. The team logo will be incorporated in the
> > heading.
> 
> 
> Since the mugshot is currently in the "heading" slot, I am guessing
> that you mean that the mugshot will be moved onto the same line as the
> application tabs. Do you have a screenshot of how that will look? I
> think it will be hard to give feedback otherwise.

The logo will be used in the branding portion of the navigation. Only th
object title should be passed to the heading slot with a <h1>. Michael
may be able to automate this, but we cannot count on it. The title edit
widget needs full control over the <h1> so it will always be passed in
pages that allow title editing.

> >
> > Side portlets
> >      * Move the privacy portlet under the action menu. This is where
> >        the toggle of global state of the team's visibility belongs. I
> >        am aware that few yours can change the state, but this is also
> >        where the state will be shown of other object that can be
> >        private.
> >      * Contact this team should be in the action menu
> >      * The action to join or leave the team could in the side portlets
> 
> Sounds reasonable.
> 
> >      * The change owner links in dangerous in the content, it should be
> >        included in the actions menu.
> 
> 
> This and other changes seem to be directly contrary to the old
> direction of showing edit links next to the item you are editing. Have
> there been users who edit things unknowingly with the edit icon in the
> content? Will each possible action only appear in the sidebar of a
> single page? I think the sidebar starts to be ignored when the user
> thinks that the list of actions never changes.

Yes, this instruction is controversial and needs discussion. I have
helped two users in the past two community help days I worked where
users shot themselves int he foot not knowing that they were giving the
project away forever.

For consistency we can have it inline, but we need to update the form to
state that the user is ceding all control to the user or team he enters.

This matter relates to the fact that Launchpad does a very poor job of
distinguishing between launchpad owner and upstream maintainer/leader.

> 
> >      * Move the PPA into the main area because the links are
> >        informational. They do not convey an action, subscription or
> >        event.
> >      * Polls are interesting I would have put them in the main content,
> >        but I like your treatment.
> >      * Can we show that latest 5 or 10 actions for the team using
> >        karmacache? (this is proposed for users)
> 
> Sure.
> 
> >
> > Main content portlets
> >      * I wonder if the mailing list information can be incorporated
> >        into this to fill the space out.
> 
> It should be possible, and I just noticed that the mailing list email
> address is getting displayed in both portlets currently.
> 
> >      * Move related projects higher, we ideally want it next to PPAs
> >        because they are related. Many teams only exist to work on
> >        projects. if this falls below its current location we will have
> >        to reopen a the bug we closed by moving the section above the
> >        fold.
> 
> This seems like something that could cause a bunch of wasted space in
> the layout. Maybe, portlets shouldn't be forced to line up
> side-by-side, so they only use as much height as they need. If I put
> the projects into columns, that vertical space used could be
> minimized. Maybe, the PPA portlet should only be half as wide, so it
> can be next to the Related Projects, but it will give those projects
> more room.

Bingo! My project page design fell apart with the rule that we never
display a portlet if there is no content and no way to create content
(the alternate approach is to explicitly state there is not content)

I discovered and easy and a hard approach to solving the problem and I
will update the wiki page with the layout suggestion. I used the hard
approach since I had worked it out and I felt I understood how the
essential and optional content interacted.

You can image the yui-g as a table row, and the yui-u as a table column.
This creates the holes as you said above, and this behaves just link
designing pages with tables. This is called YUI-Grid afterall. It
assumes all content is essential. It's uses of the 'first' class makes
portlet reusablity difficult without careful template creation

I agree with your alignment suggestion. It is not beautiful, but is is
safe to use. That was my easy layout

<div class="yui-g">
  <div class="first yui-u">
   # Call the essential portlets.
   # Call the optional portlets. 
  </div>
  <div class="yui-u">
   # Call the essential portlets.
   # Call the optional portlets.
  </div>
</div>

The more complex approach is to create a row (yui-g) for each pair of
essential content so that some of the page aligns and looks nice. In the
last row (yui-g), call all the optional portlets. The pushed the only
part of the layout below the fold. You can also interleave single column
portlets between the yui-g rows to improve the layout.


<div class="yui-g">
  <div class="first yui-u">
   # Call the essential portlet.
  </div>
  <div class="yui-u">
   # Call the essential portlet.
  </div>
</div>

<div class="yui-g">
  <div class="first yui-u">
   # Call the essential portlet.
  </div>
  <div class="yui-u">
   # Call the essential portlet.
  </div>
</div>

<div>
  # an essential or optional portlet that is one column
</div>

<div class="yui-g">
  <div class="first yui-u">
   # Call the optional portlets. 
  </div>
  <div class="yui-u">
   # Call the optional portlets.
  </div>
</div>

Since related projects and PPAs are optional, we can only hope they line
up. I think they should be the first calls in each column of the
optional content so that they are prominent.

> 
> >      * Teams need a way to get to their +maintained-packages
> >      * Answers is problematic. Teams only have questions that they are
> >        subscribed or assigned. Some teams do work as answer contacts
> >        (which is why they can set their language). We need to fix the
> >        portlet as it only shows subscribed, not assigned. It will only
> >        appear for a few teams. We need to fix the answers menu items,
> >        because a team cannot ask or answer a question.
> 
> I'm not sure what you are referring to by "fix the answers menu
> items". Does it have menu items on the overview page? Are you talking
> about the actions menu or some other menu?

answers.launchpad.net/~team makes links that are impossible. Asked
questions is absurd. How can you login as a team and ask a question?

I can work with Paul to fix this situation.

> I also think that I should hide the questions portlet automatically if
> there are no questions.

It does this now. It have a modification for it because it is also used
on on the project page.

> >      * Recently applied, recently proposed, and recently added are
> >        missing from the mockup.
> 
> I assume you mean Recently Approved. I was confused for a minute.
> Martin Pool would like all the members to be shown for reasonably
> small projects, so I was thinking about putting that at the bottom and
> putting the members into three or more columns to save space.

Yes, that is something we should try.

> >      * I wonder if we should consider showing the names of RSS feeds on
> >        persons, teams, and project pages.
> 
> I think there is some danger if we only show some RSS feeds inline,
> and users stop clicking on the browser's own RSS icon.

Yes. good point.

> >      * Users are getting an expanded working on section. Is some of
> >        this applicable to teams? latest branches, subscribed bugs and
> >        blueprints. Teams can be assigned bugs, but I think that is
> >        crack. Well as we can see, they can be assigned questions and we
> >        are showing that.
> 
> I don't know. I only use the team page to join it or its mailing list.

Excellent point. The bugs about related software, packages, and ppas
indicate some teams some users use the team page as an alternate
identity. Since we do not understand how they are using the page, our
implementation sucks.

The answers portlet is a "working on" item and it exists because a team
can be an answer contact. I do not think anyone is disputing it's
inclusion on the page (and it has been there for two years). I think it
it can be improved now that I gave answer contacts the power to assign
questions.

I think we need to hear from other developers about how team pages are
used.

PS. And after you join the team you have to workout how to get the
team's mailinglist from your own email page :(.

-- 
__Curtis C. Hovey_________
http://launchpad.net/

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