tcl wiki show/hide discussion
Robert H
Aric Bills
> Not a fan...the whole point of the wiki *is* the discussion.
At least part of the point is to serve as a reference, and sometimes
the reference part gets eclipsed by long exchanges of opinions.
Jeff Hobbs
+1. The wiki is not a discussion forum, it's a knowledge base. Some
discussion adds, most of it detracts. If something is answered, you
mostly don't need the steps that got to the answer, just having the
answer should suffice.
Jeff
Donal K. Fellows
> +1. The wiki is not a discussion forum, it's a knowledge base. Some
> discussion adds, most of it detracts. If something is answered, you
> mostly don't need the steps that got to the answer, just having the
> answer should suffice.
Right now, I'm focussing on dealing with turning the pages on Tcl
commands into primarily documentation and references to other pages on
first view; the discussion is there, but requires (a little) action to
go to. There are a few other pages which I'm also tidying up as I
think of (mostly for major packages) but my intention is to leave most
pages alone.
Where there is an important technique for a command in the comments,
it probably ought to be its own page anyway, and linked from the See
Also section.
Donal.
Keith Nash
tweaked to make it even more useful.
On many pages, the discussion ranges over several topics. Then it is useful
to have several discussion blocks, with a summary of each one. I have
edited the page on [string is] to do this:
http://wiki.tcl.tk/10166 (rev. 32)
Suggested tweaks:
(1) The Wiki source would be easier to follow if we used a different tag,
e.g. <</discussion>>, to close a discussion block. This change would also
mean that a bad edit to one discussion block (e.g. a space in front of a
<<discussion>> tag) would toggle the state of the page only up to the next
<<discussion>> or <</discussion>> tag - not the whole page.
(2) The "Show/Hide Discussion" button is immediately preceded by a
horizontal line. It would be useful if we could put a title or summary
between the horizontal line and the button - currently, the title/summary
must either follow the button, or be separated from it by the horizontal
line. One way to implement this is to omit the horizontal line, and let the
author insert this separately with "----" at an appropriate place.
Keith.
Arndt Roger Schneider
Put a single "Hide Details"/ "Show Details" button
--for the entire wiki--
inside the left pane, defaulting to: "Hide Details"
--all comments are displayed.
Having to click on multiple discussion buttons in order
to follow the comments inside the wiki is frustrating, don't.
-roger
Keith Nash
> Put a single "Hide Details"/ "Show Details" button
> --for the entire wiki--
> inside the left pane, defaulting to: "Hide Details"
> --all comments are displayed.
> Having to click on multiple discussion buttons in order
> to follow the comments inside the wiki is frustrating, don't.
I agree that for some pages a single discussion button will be the best
solution. It is clearly not a good idea to split a discussion if the
comments in one block follow on from those in another. I think multiple
buttons are helpful when there are several unrelated discussion topics, some
of them with long discussions.
Keith.
Keith Nash
> horizontal line. It would be useful if we could put a title or summary
> between the horizontal line and the button - currently, the title/summary
> must either follow the button, or be separated from it by the horizontal
> line. One way to implement this is to omit the horizontal line, and let
> the author insert this separately with "----" at an appropriate place.
Thank you for implementing this so quickly. I have edited the page on
[string is] to have headings for each discussion topic:
http://wiki.tcl.tk/10166 (rev. 33)
The bold headings and (author-inserted) horizontal lines are helpful when
one or more discussion blocks have been expanded, but do add to clutter when
all the discussion blocks are collapsed. Perhaps someone can suggest a
better style?
Keith.
Arndt Roger Schneider
> Arndt Roger Schneider wrote:
>
>
>>Put a single "Hide Details"/ "Show Details" button
>>--for the entire wiki--
>>inside the left pane, defaulting to: "Hide Details"
>>--all comments are displayed.
> ... I think multiple
> buttons are helpful when there are several unrelated discussion topics, some
> of them with long discussions.
>
> Keith.
>
This is a wiki it is supposed to become messy.
If there are multiple unrelated discussion-strains, then
it is time to split the page into multiple pages.
-roger
Alexandre Ferrieux
>
> Thank you for implementing this so quickly. I have edited the page on
> [string is] to have headings for each discussion topic:
>
>
> The bold headings and (author-inserted) horizontal lines are helpful when
> one or more discussion blocks have been expanded, but do add to clutter when
> all the discussion blocks are collapsed. Perhaps someone can suggest a
> better style?
What about this: instead of having those big "Show Discussion"
buttons taking up screen space, just let the discussion topic become a
link with the same effect (expanding).
-Alex
jdc
> > horizontal line. It would be useful if we could put a title or summary
> > between the horizontal line and the button - currently, the title/summary
> > must either follow the button, or be separated from it by the horizontal
> > line. One way to implement this is to omit the horizontal line, and let
> > the author insert this separately with "----" at an appropriate place.
>
> Thank you for implementing this so quickly. I have edited the page on
> [string is] to have headings for each discussion topic:
>
>
> The bold headings and (author-inserted) horizontal lines are helpful when
> one or more discussion blocks have been expanded, but do add to clutter when
> all the discussion blocks are collapsed. Perhaps someone can suggest a
> better style?
>
> Keith.
Maybe put the ---- inside the <<discussion>>? I updated 10166 in that
way.
Jos.
Alexandre Ferrieux
Much better :)
Now one last thing, as in my other message: saving 50% or vertical
space by replacing the "Show Discussion" button by:
- either a tiny "+" (expand) icon/microbutton on the left of the
thread title
- or making the thread title itself a hyperlink, doing the same
What do you think ?
-Alex
Donald Arseneau
> Now one last thing, as in my other message: saving 50% or vertical
> space by replacing the "Show Discussion" button by:
> - either a tiny "+" (expand) icon/microbutton on the left of the
> thread title
> - or making the thread title itself a hyperlink, doing the same
I think it was already excessivly abbreviated with the show discussion
buttons. A "+" button would be terribly cryptic to boot.
I do like the organizing into themes, and would be very happy with
a little jump-to-topic table of contents.
--
Donald Arseneau as...@triumf.ca
Alexandre Ferrieux
> Alexandre Ferrieux <alexandre.ferri...@gmail.com> writes:
> > Now one last thing, as in my other message: saving 50% or vertical
> > space by replacing the "Show Discussion" button by:
> > - either a tiny "+" (expand) icon/microbutton on the left of the
> > thread title
> > - or making the thread title itself a hyperlink, doing the same
>
> I think it was already excessivly abbreviated with the show discussion
> buttons. A "+" button would be terribly cryptic to boot.
>
> I do like the organizing into themes, and would be very happy with
> a little jump-to-topic table of contents.
>
Ah, then we converge on the "display themes as hyperlinks" idea. There
isn't much difference between a ToC and a list of clickable themes;
only in the Toc case the page is huge[*] from the beginning, while in
the link-expand case it becomes so by user decision ;-)
-Alex
[*] visually huge. The data (discussion bodies) are transmitted
anyway, and local javascript code toggles their visibility.
tom.rmadilo
wrote:
Good idea, although I would add in using CSS to figure out the exact
display.
I appreciate the use of javascript to expand from a brief summary or
lede to a few additional paragraphs, but expanding to a fully hashed
out discussion might be better left to an additional HTTP request
where the discussion page contains useful display features (expand/
thread view/chronological view/author view/ratings view/etc.).
I also suggest that someone investigate the potential effect on Google
rankings. Hidden text is usually a bad thing and could lead to loss in
ranking. For a high quality/high information site like wiki.tcl.tk,
this might be a very bad thing.
Using a button to expand a discussion also seems strange to me. I
click buttons to submit information. A mouse-over doesn't reveal a
target. However, if I mouse-over a link, I see where I will go if I
click. Alt/title text can also be used to describe what will happen if
I click (for example the page title links to references, a mouse-over
tells me what I should expect).
But the wiki is so useful and easy to browse that my main complaint
would be the poor quality of the generated HTML. It is
unreadable...although it is slightly better than what a Java App would
generate.
I think my preference would be for an edited summary with footnote
links to a discussion. I've seen some topics arrive at a conclusion
only to be stirred up again with useless information. The original or
maintaining authors might feel some need to respond to these new posts
just to preserve the integrity of the information presented. Or they
might not notice or bother with this and future readers might not get
the best information. But it is difficult to compare a CLT discussion
forum with a typical Tcl wiki page. The wiki discussion tends to be of
a higher quality, usually because making a valid argument requires
source code.
JHJL
> Not a fan...the whole point of the wiki *is* the discussion.
I'm not a fan either. I can see why hiding/revealing seemed like a
good idea but I think it is the wrong solution.
The few examples of the Show/Hide Discussion button I have seen have
made the pages look disjointed (e.g. http://wiki.tcl.tk/10166)
especially where the elided text is short.
Worse, this breaks the search in pages facility. If I search for text
that has been hidden, I get a page in which I then have to unhide each
discussion until I find the one (or more who knows?) that I am looking
for.
If it's purpose is to reduce clutter then I think it is better to move
the clutter to a new linked page. Alternatively, "discussions" could
be marked up in a distinctive way (inset box with different back
ground colour for example). Then I can see that this additional info
and can skip it if I choose. This would be better still if each page
had a table of contents...
ho hum
tomk
I agree with Jeff and I like new show/hide feature. I also feel the
wiki could be improved by the addition of a notification feature that
would allow an author (or others) to receive an email when a page is
updated. I think this would enable the timely maintenance of wiki
content.
tomk
tom.rmadilo
> On Oct 22, 8:20 pm, Robert H <sigz...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Not a fan...the whole point of the wiki *is* the discussion.
>
> I'm not a fan either. I can see why hiding/revealing seemed like a
> good idea but I think it is the wrong solution.
>
> The few examples of the Show/Hide Discussion button I have seen have
> especially where the elided text is short.
>
> Worse, this breaks the search in pages facility. If I search for text
> that has been hidden, I get a page in which I then have to unhide each
> discussion until I find the one (or more who knows?) that I am looking
> for.
>
> If it's purpose is to reduce clutter then I think it is better to move
> the clutter to a new linked page. Alternatively, "discussions" could
> be marked up in a distinctive way (inset box with different back
> ground colour for example). Then I can see that this additional info
> and can skip it if I choose. This would be better still if each page
> had a table of contents...
It should be possible to do this entirely with CSS: then just allow
users to select their preferred stylesheet.
The buttons are completely non-intuitive. I don't think I've ever seen
a site use them to expand text. Expanding text is a cool feature, but
it is usually used when multiple headlines/topics are presented
(usually by a blog or news site). In that case, long articles or posts
tend to obscure content of equal/similar prominence by pushing them
off screen. The idea comes from dead-trees newspapers where most of
the store is inside a section. But since the discussion text is
already off screen and there is only one topic per page, it is
difficult to understand the point.
Breaking search also applies to external search, and as I said earlier
it might even have a major impact on how Google ranks the pages.
tom.rmadilo
You could probably get a Tcl script to parse the "Recent Changes" page
and setup a notification facility as an external web service. (Or add
an RSS/twitter/etc. feed to "Recent Changes")
miguel sofer
>> I agree with Jeff and I like new show/hide feature. I also feel the
>> wiki could be improved by the addition of a notification feature that
>> would allow an author (or others) to receive an email when a page is
>> updated. I think this would enable the timely maintenance of wiki
>> content.
>
> You could probably get a Tcl script to parse the "Recent Changes" page
> and setup a notification facility as an external web service. (Or add
> an RSS/twitter/etc. feed to "Recent Changes")
tom.rmadilo
Great! Although the head of every page has a link to this file, there
are no user visible links. I would suggest adding an rss icon/link to
the "Recent Changes" page at minimum, but maybe the site footer (on
every page) would be a better location.
jdc
>
> Great! Although the head of every page has a link to this file, there
> are no user visible links. I would suggest adding an rss icon/link to
> the "Recent Changes" page at minimum, but maybe the site footer (on
> every page) would be a better location.
When using FireFox you'll notice the RSS icon in the statusbar.
tom.rmadilo
Oh, I'm sorry...wonnerful! wonnerful!
Actually: What? Where?
I don't even see this page's current links:
<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="RSS"
href="http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.tcl/feed/
rss_v2_0_msgs.xml">
<link rel="alternate" type="application/atom+xml" title="Atom"
href="http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.tcl/feed/
atom_v1_0_msgs.xml">
Keith Nash
> This is a wiki it is supposed to become messy.
> If there are multiple unrelated discussion-strains, then
> it is time to split the page into multiple pages.
I agree that in some cases this will be the best solution. The good thing
is that now we have a number of choices - multiple pages, single page with
one discussion, single page with multiple discussions.
Keith.
Larry W. Virden
> Not a fan...the whole point of the wiki *is* the discussion.
Note that the show/hide discussion feature only appears when someone
edits a wiki page to add special tags.
If a particular page is less useful due to the tags, then perhaps an
email exchange with the person who made the change would convince them
to drop the tags from the page in question.
Please do note, however, that the discussion isn't being deleted - the
material is there. One has to press a button to show it.
Perhaps requesting a feature so that a person who objects to the idea
can specify the collapse never occur for them is appropriate.
Larry W. Virden
While I don't object to the idea, I agree that the point of a
community collaboration site is collaboration, so hiding relevant
information, that happens to be in the form of a discussion, does not
seem as useful.
Of course, if the discussion is NOT relevant to the topic of the page,
then a better solution would be to move the material to a new page,
with a link to the new page where ever it would be relevant.