[Fle3-dev] Knowledge building UI refactoring

[Tarmo Toikkanen]

The UI layout of the knowledge building, specifically the note view,
has been criticized and needs some work.

I've committed to CVS a first draft of a better layout, where all
note-related links and controls are grouped under the note. I've tried
to imitate the same design philosophy we have elsewhere in Fle3:
general functions on top, object related functions below the object.

Giedre and all others who are interested, please take a look and
comment.

I made a quick screen shot at
http://turing.uiah.fi/tarmo/fle_new_layout.png for those who haven't
configured CVS to work. The "Censor" button isn't shown, but will
appear to the left of the "Create link on WebTop" button. Any comments
are welcome.

I tried moving the "show/hide bodies of notes" link to above the note,
but the turning triangle thingy didn't look good there. And with that move
we should also move the sorting functions up as well. That would mean
actually moving the current note inside the thread view, so it would
always appear not at the top, but in the thread (whatever sorting
method) in its correct place. This has been discussed as well, and it
has some advantages and disadvantages. Any comments on this issue are
also welcome.

Advantages: The current note would only appear once - currently it
appears twice if all note bodies are shown. Also the reader would not
lose context - the note would always appear in its correct place in
the thread, and not "jump to the top", as users describe the feeling
of clicking on a new note.

Disadvantages: We'll need to use anchors to jump to the current note
if it no longer appears at the top of the page. When showing all note
bodies it may be difficult to find the "current note" and also
understand why there is a current note. Should we then have all
controls surrounding each of the notes? Or somehow highlight/emphasize
the current note?

Note that the advantages listed are also disadvantages in the current
system. We should decide which list is more important - which
advantages we want and which we do not. Or could we somehow solve this
issue in another way?

--
Tarmo Toikkanen
http://www.iki.fi/tarmo/
The Fle3 Team
http://fle3.uiah.fi