schooltool-developers team mailing list archive

[Alan Elkner <aelkner@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hey Guys,

Tom and I met last week to discuss, amongst other things, my next
project which involves overhauling the section index.html view and
adding views for linking sections between terms.  I've attached two
photos of whiteboard designs, one for the new index.html view and the
other for the new section linkage view.

The overhaul of the index.html view involves creating a four column
view using the new size, spacing and color standards as laid out in
the Ubuntu design standards document.  The first column serves as a
sidebar with links for the other terms the section is linked to as
well as a link called 'All Terms' that take the user to the section
linkage view.  The second column has the information that currently is
displayed as a rather awkward title of the index.html view.  Although
we forgot to specify it with the whiteboard, the resources will be
listed below.  The third column is for the instructors and the fourth
is for the students.

The section linkage view shown in the other photo will have one column
per term for the schoolyear in question.  The term of the section in
question and any term for which the section is linked will be filled
in with the instructor and students for that section for that term.
The other terms will have two buttons.  The first allows the user with
one click to extend the linkage of the section to that term, thereby
creating the new section and populating it with the same teacher and
students.  The other button allows the user to find a section that
already exists but was not yet linked.  Clinking on that button will
take the user to a third view (not whiteboarded) that will allow the
user to search for a matching section and link it to the section in
question.

Since we have no whiteboard for that, I will describe it as follows:
it will have a search widget that has an input field for entering the
instructor's name (auto-filled in with the instructor of the section
in question) and a Find button.  The user can clear the instructor
filter if they like, and when they hit the Find button, it will return
a list of links, one for each section in the target term that has the
same exact course(s), filtering by instructor name if entered.  If the
user clicks on one of the links, the section in question will be
immediately linked to the section specified in the link.  Also, the
user will be returned to the section index.html view where they can
see that the linkage occurred.

Finally, I will be creating a subscription adapter for adding or
removing teachers or instructors that will automatically propagate the
change to all linked sections of terms that come after the term in
question.  Sections linked from previous terms will be left alone.

If anyone sees any problems with this plan, please let me know before
I prepare a final estimate for this set of tasks.

Thanks,
Alan