Hi, all - we're launching a new project for the PublicLab.org website to completely revise the research note posting form based on input from various folks. This summer, we'll launch a similar effort to redesign our wiki pages.
As is always the case in coding, our to-do list could be infinitely long ;-) but I'm hoping to get some of the basic ideas and goals out there in this post, and solicit input and futher suggestions which we'll use to decide on a scope for this project. We're looking to achieve our top goals within a defined timeline, so not everything will be incorporated, but we'll do our best to knock the highest items off the list.
Rich Editor
The Rich Editor project is focused on the following goals, so far:
- easier, more newcomer-friendly posting experience
- clearer prompts/scaffolding for formatting and tagging your work
- tools to encourage authors to invite others into their work
- not overwhelming authors with too much interface
- backwards compatibility with older notes
Some ways we're hoping to address these will most likely include:
- a rich text, What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get (WYSIWYG) editor (possibly using the Woofmark library)
- WYSIWYG image upload and management
- more customized interface for different note types (events, questions, etc)
- modularizing parts of the new editor for re-use by others as an independent library (PublicLab.Editor.js or
npm install publiclab-editor
)
Other ideas that could come into play:
- prompting people to describe their work in steps
- prompting for materials/methods -- to enable others to reproduce
- suggested tags interface
- drafts, revisions, better auto-save
- more comprehensive co-authoring
- "write a research note about this" bookmarklet
- inline display of a collection of notes, by tag
Have ideas, want to explore/brainstorm/encourage/caution on any of the above? Please leave a comment!
Rich Wiki
Some of the work on the Rich Editor will likely be re-used in the Rich Wiki project, but wikis are more complex (multiple authors, for one), which is why we're doing this project second.
There's a lot here, and we have more time to plan, but the overall goals are to:
- make the wiki a more collaborative space
- invite more people in to edit/maintain wikis
- make wikis a place to write together, instead of write over one another
- make edits visible to other authors, so they can be discussed
- make it easier to keep wikis up to date and relevant
- make wikis more of a living document -- a place to work together, not to just dump information
Ideas/plans:
- rich/WYSIWYG editing (built on the Rich Editor work)
- commenting and/or in-line commenting
- commenting UI: speech-bubble icon in margin
- "suggest a change" feature, "resolved"
- comment history
- editing of subsections: "edit this section"
- more embedding options like maps, data
- concurrent editing? (difficult but possible)
- "staleness" reminders:
- top of page notice if no edits in X weeks
- email notification to all authors/watchers "this page hasn't been updated in a while. Mark it [out-of-date] [needs-help]"
- listing at
https://publiclab.org/wiki/stale
- more wiki page templates: guides, events, how-to, etc?
- page "Pulse" as Github does for projects, to see a snapshot of collaboration: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/pulse/monthly
A couple may be completed earlier as they've become a priority due to an increase in spam:
- wiki edit notifications, subscriptions
- wiki page locking
Anyhow, please jump in with ideas -- we'll likely have to break out some features into separate discussions, so I may break out (at least) the Rich Wikis part of this into its own research note, but either way, we're eager to hear from folks!
Hi Warren,
this is great news. As a newby with the PLab spectrometry I find it still a bit difficult to navigate on the spectrometry pages. (Where do I find the "Write a research note" button? Where are the spectra? Sometimes when I go to my dashboard I see the last spectra but the site seems unable to load the latest research notes...
Also the spectrum tools page is a bit confusing for a beginner. Its all there but its not always easy to find and to know how to use it without reading the manual. Perhaps a new outfit with a standard menue (notes, spectra, tools, capture interface...) that appears on ALL pages at the same place and a more intuitively usable tools page would be great. I am not sure if the webspace provider software is limiting the graphic design possibilities of the pages but if not I could try to help to design something that others could put into proper code...
And another proposal: on the capture page you see the spectrum in real time (camera picture) but it would be nice to have the waterfall and real time curve picture there as well to see how the changes in the cross section line affect the resulting curves without having to go back and forth between the pages. And it would be even cooler if the camera picture there would be bigger so that it will be easier to find the best cross section. (My mouse hand motorics aren't so precise, you know?)
I hope this helps on your quest to improve things. I still think this is an absolutely great community here!
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