Re: [Fofredux-devel] Version 0.2

[Andrew T. (nilspace) <nil...@us...>]

On 2/22/06, Kevin <ke...@dr...> wrote:
> khaled Abou Alfa wrote:
> > I can guarantee you that this almost never happens, but tonight I
> > really had a lot of inspiration for this project. Everything just fell
> > into place pretty nicely so here is the mockup that is actually pretty
> > close to where I was originally thinking for fofredux.
> >
> > here's where to download it:
> > www.brokenkode.com/fofr/Version-0.3.jpg
> > <http://www.brokenkode.com/fofr/Version-0.3.jpg>
> >
> > Top Navigation.
> > The things that new users will be interested in is adding feeds.
> > That's why it's the very first thing in the top left hand corner.
> > Since it's good to keep the place nice and tidy, that category and tag
> > links are next to that. For the icons I've used those provided by
> > famfamfam ( http://www.famfamfam.com/) which I really like and haven't
> > used in a project yet. Generally open source applications seem to lack
> > these and yet they really will make everything pop at the user and
> > make it that much more instinctive. I can play around with the colour
> > of the add feed icon without much problems, if anyone's got an issue
> > with the rest of the icons just shout out.
> >
> Excellent work.  This is the professional look FoFR is lacking.  We have
> decent features but not UI to express it.
>
Agreed - excellent start Khaled. I like the simple look, yet
effectiveness of the interface.  Icons are definitely a nice little
touch to an application over just text links to add some quick UI
reference for users to identify and use.

A couple of notes:
Sidebar:
 * 'feeds' column should really have '10 unread items' and I think
should possibly have 10 unread (220 total) or something. Maybe not, as
seeing the undaunting '10' is happier than seeing 220 :) But either
way the naming scheme is:
  fofredux has feeds
  feeds have items
  feeds belong to categories
  items have tags
maybe that simple layout of naming hierarchies can induce some ideas
in your great UI schema.

> > Logging in.
> > To me this is the single most important feature that needs to be added
> > to fofredux. Having a proper login feature in here. I will be tackling
> > this area once I've got this page and adding elements (such as feeds
> > and categories done). Logging out is in the top right hand corner as
> > is standard convention.
Yes, a user system appears to be a definitely forward looking future.
I believe currently all users are "1-up" personal hackers/enthusiats.
but having the ability to provide your friends, family, groups, etc.
with their own FoFR view would be great.


> >
> > Secondary Navigation:
> > This one here is how we're viewing the feeds etc. Slightly
> > understated, but that's ok I guess as it something that ideally should
> > be cached (not the case right now I guess, or am I wrong?).
> > Can I ask what flagging items actually does? I've not been able to
> > work that one out, so a little help in that direction would be much
> > appreciated.
> >
> Flagging items means identifying a group of items in order to perform
> some operation on them.   This could be one of the following:
>
> *mark as read
> *mark as unread
> *mark as saved
> *mark as unsaved
> *add a tag to the item
>
> The actual "flag" is the checkbox in the item within the view.  The
> links for "flag all" and "unflag all" are just helpers that check or
> uncheck every item in the page.

I think you should separate the "view new items    view today's items,
etc." from the "Flag All items" The first 3 are changing "what" I'm
seeing and the "Flag *" and "Mark As" are doing something *to* the
items I'm currently seeing.


> > Links:
> > You'll notice two distinct colours for the links. The first being in
> > aqua blue. These are for links that are effectively OUTSIDE the
> > programme. The magenta links are for all the internal areas.
> >

Great separation - ala wiki's with the "out" icon for exteranl links too.

> > Sidebar: This one has the most changes that will need to be discussed
> > further with everyone. I like the age of the feed column, need the
> > name of the site where the feed is coming from. And then to make
> > reading easier and also make it clear that this is what people should
> > be clicking on if they want to read anything from this particular site
> > is the feeds column.
 > >
> > I've made the remove column a bit special by making it into an icon her=
e.

I think we should remove the "remove" column as it really is "too
accessible" from this view. Any modifying of feeds (name, delete,
etc.) should happen from the admin panel, and not possible from just
clicking in the view sidebar over by several pixels. I think the
"remove" column could be replaced with the "update" column mentioned
by Kevin.

> > Okay that's it for tonight. Do we have a javascript/XMLHttpRequest
> > guru on board? The reason I ask is because I've got a pretty cool idea
> > of how we can get the add feed, categories and tags sorted out but I
> > don't want to jump the gun. The current changes are a simple question
> > of changing the css file, so it's not major but what I've got in mind
> > will require some programming kung-fu.
> >
> I think we agree that implementing some features using AJAX is a good
> thing.  None of us has claimed the title of "guru" yet.(certainly not
> me)  Whatever is decided.  converting the action to AJAX shouldn't be
> that difficult.

I've implemented AJAX on several other projects but have held off on
FoFRedux b/c it hasn't been clear what our goal is. Are we a simple,
no-nonsense feedreader, a customizable, solid good code one, just
another one written in PHP, one that offers new features such as
tagging, geotagging/mapping, social syncronization, independent
install on personal servers (all of which are pretty cool and not very
well done by others), or what?

I have a lot of experience with the scriptaculous/prototype libraries,
but I think Moo.fx might be a better, lightweight, option. Really, the
functionality we need are: marking, then hiding feeds are
read/unread/tagged; updating feeds; and perhaps a slick dynamic,
live-preview, search. Khaled, if  you have experience/expertise in
Ajax, I definitely would like your suggestions on what would be
simple, yet effective, there too.

I've read the reviews Katie posted, as well as some others I've
crossed. They tend to diss Gregarious and others for having a little
heavy handed Ajax for the sake of Ajax, and I really don't think we
want that.

Ok - so a couple of other things to end the email:
* Need to add a "flag" area to each item's header. Even with ajax,
each item should have a "mark as read" or similar icon/link for either
flagging or asyncronously marking as read and then hiding
* What happens when categories/tags are longer than your example? Does
the css handle them wrapping nicely?
* Search may have a drop down for doing a search on criteria: Search
this feed, search new, search using "cool design" + my query, etc?

Looks really great Khaled, thanks for the infusion of design and art
into our otherwise very geeky/techical app ;)

Andrew

--
Andrew Turner
ajt...@hi...        42.4266N x 83.4931W
http://highearthorbit.com              Northville, Michigan, USA