[Fofredux-devel] Version 0.9

[khaled A. A. <bro...@gm...>]

Ok everyone I hope you're all relaxed because I think I've got the framed
view down. I have tried to incorporate everyone's thoughts while at the sam=
e
trying hard to keep it as simple and uncluttered as possible.

So lets start with the explanations.

Starting from the very top. We've got four major links. These links
effectively will change the view in the sidebar. Feeds is as shown, Categor=
y
will show the different kinds of categories that have been created and on
clicking that all feeds in that particular category will be shown. Tags
follows the same kind of vision as well. The final addition is Flags. This
to me is just a better way that the 'saved' name that is currently being
used. An item will be able to be flagged whether it's been read or not. The
idea here is that you'll be able to view items that really interested you
much later down the line, whether you've read them or not. You don't have t=
o
go back to a website and trek for the information doing searches and what
not. You just see your flagged items and you're good to go. I guess that's
where the search feature will come in handy as well. So hopefully Miles tha=
t
deals with that worry you had :). Done and dusted.

On the right hand side we've got the secondary menu bar. Full view is what
I'm calling the no-frames view. If you guys have a better name for this I'm
all ears :).Refresh, it's important but secondary in nature so it's right
there as well. The admin panel is back where it belongs, and as is the
logging out of the system.

Moving directly down to the sidebar there have been a couple of changes
since version 0.7 and I'll explain how I see these working.

Right about the sidebar is a link called 'mark all as read' that will do
just that. All feeds in the sidebar will be marked as read. If a person
wants to mark one feed as completely read then he'll have to click the othe=
r
mark all as read link on the far right hand side above the main items
section. The thing is most people are used to clicking on the title of the
feed in the sidebar and then by it turning up it's automatically seen as th=
e
fact that the entire feed items have been read. FOFR gives additional
flexibility. The only draw back is that there is one additional click that
the user has to make in order to achieve that effect. It's a small price to
pay I believe.

One thing that has gone is the age of the feed. I don't think that this is
particularly necessary. It clutters things up. Mostly I don't care when
something was written (ie 1 day ago or 3 days ago). And anyway for that
information I've got the full date written in the feed for that, so I didn'=
t
feel too bad removing that element from the sidebar.

The number of feeds has returned, as has the total number of feeds. This
time the total number is found right at the top in the menu section and I
was hoping that this could be updated as you read through the items. Not
sure how feasible that actually is but there you go. I'll leave that to you
guys to decide and sort out, maybe in future versions, but for now I guess
the user will have to refresh to get that information?

You can flag a whole feed, which I guess is a good option (ie you can save
an entire feed).

You can update each individual feed as well. Not sure how useful this
actually is but alas it's not that cluttering and if you think it'll be use=
d
then that's cool.

Moving to the meat and potatoes of the items there have been a couple of
changes additions here. I've added the option to include tags on a feed ite=
m
basis (thanks Katie, good idea). You'll also notice that I've got the mark
as read and unread link and icon in each feed. Once again this is a mere
click and it toggles between the two different icons and states. Right abov=
e
is the mark all as read link, and the pagination of the feed links. I think
in the admin panel we'd probably have the option of the maximum number of
feeds that can get displayed before a new page is done. I guess it could be
an option or for a start we can concentrate it as a default and integrate
this in later on.


As you can see we can also flag every single item on the left hand side of
the title of the item. The website url has been included in there as well,
although in a slightly more subtle way. We should make it as a default that
external links open in a new window/tab whatever.

Katie, you voiced your concren over the fact that the link on the side
doesn't collaborate to the stuff shown. That was just indicative of what
things will look like. I've made the changes just for you. Chris J Davis in
the sidebar, chris j davis in the main feed.


And that is all she wrote (although that's enough really). Sorry about bein=
g
so verbose but it's hard to communicate everything over emails and things
and intents get lost. Anyway everyone mull it over have a think about it,
there's a lot there, and to be fair in less than a week I've come in and
changed a slew of things that you might not be entirely happy with. So just
tell me and I'll try and incorporate them into the design.

Regarding promotion, I think I can pretty much guarantee that the entire
9rules network will be behind this, I'm setting up a mini-website to
showcase the design behind the programme which should get some more interes=
t
in it all. I know people have been clamouring for something like this... I
know I have.

So here's the latest version which I believe is very very close to the fina=
l
thing.

http://www.brokenkode.com/fofr/Version-0.9.jpg

Khaled
www.brokenkode.com