Feature Wiki
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Groups and Courses: News Timeline
Page Overview
[Hide]This feature request is a part of the Concept for Learning Communities specifically it is a sub-project to implement Teams.
1 Requirements
Groups and courses should offer a view that is dedicated to showing user news from users reporting on their activities. This view allows users to publish information without having to master handling an ILIAS object.
- A new News Timeline view will be present news (automatic and user generated) in chronological order.
- News and / or messages are dispalyed in a "backbone" strucuture using the new KS-Entry: Vertical Timeline element. And "Add" button will offer the possibility to add new entries.
- The timeline could be presented as
- a separate tab "Timeline" that will serve as a landing page instead of the "Content"-tab. Since it is content related (auto created news related to content items and user related content) and a landing page, a suggestion would be to present a new tab on the far left. The timeline tab should contain a button to the content tab.
- a section comprising x items shown above the typical content in the "Content"-tab.
Timeline Presentation- There is the "Settings"-tab under the setting "Presentation Type" there should be an additional option "Timeline“.
- The Timeline offers an option to hide news that were created automatically.
News timeline related group settings- There is a need for a new permission "Add News" that allows to add news and edit own news without "write" permission.
- Editing News have to be simplified / made more user-friendly for this purpose. Modal dialogs should be used to make the editing more efficient.
News Modal1.1 Content of Each Item
The content of each item is not defined by the KS-Entry: Vertical Timeline. The presentation is very similar to a forum posting, which unfortunatly does not come with a defined KS-component yet. We suggest to present news timline entries very similar (see screenshots) to a forum posting with 5.2 and to discuss a common KS element for forum postings and news timeline entries (and possibly comments and notes) for 5.3.
1.2 Related KS-Entries
2 Additional Information
- Idea / concept: Marko Glaubitz (marko.glaubitz@rz.uni-freiburg.de)
- Interest in funding: Universität Freiburg
- Maintainer: Meyer, Stefan [smeyer]
- Implementation of the feature is done by Meyer, Stefan [smeyer]
- Testcases by: Tödt, Alexandra [atoedt]
3 Discussion
Killing, Alexander [alex], 2 März 2016: There are several examples how to build a timeline-like view using bootsrap/Css, see e.g. here. It should be quite easy to allow learners to write news. Using the news system would have other advantages, too. E.g. we already have all we need on the database side and other things like daily mails. I agree that writing news should be easy. Maybe switching to a modal to write the entries (similar to the notes/comments) already is a first easy-to-do step. In general I would fully support the idea of making this "a view" on the news system.
Glaubitz, Marko [mglaubitz], 11 March 2016: I like the Idea of using a modal for the input and I like the the showcases / examples for timelines that Alex has provided. Thanks a lot for this, Alex.
I would like to point out one more thing: if the Timeline is realised as a new Tab and ist then set to be the new "landing page" (if activated) of a course or group, there should be a strong visual trigger (e.g. button) that refers to the Content tab as the place where anything except "timeline posts" can and should be accomplished. Many users who will encounter the timline will not be "authoring" power users in ILIAS and might thus be "trapped" on the timeline screen, not knowing that creating files, forums, wikis, learning modules, glossaries, ... are just two clicks away.
I could image having two buttons on the timeline screen: [Create Post] [Got to Content Tab] (the wording needs to be refined :) )
Killing, Alexander [alex], 3 June 2016: We will implement the version with a visual timeline, image attachements and headings are nice to haves.
JourFixe, ILIAS [jourfixe], JUL 04, 2016: We will discuss and decide upon this feature request on a dedicated JF VC at JUL 06, 11 a.m., see Workshop-2016-07-06
Glaubitz, Marko [mglaubitz] 06.07.2016:
Bugs:
Landing / Default Screen
- das News Tab ist noch nicht die Landiung Page der Gruppe
- die Tages-"Kugeln" werden nicht gut platziert. ja nach Länge der Beiträge, gehören neuere Beiröäge mal zum letzen Tag und auch anders herum.--> Frage: könnte man eine horizontale Line an der Tagesgrenze einführen?
- die zweispaltige Darstellung verschenk viel Platz bei unterschiedlich langen Beiträgen und je nachdem was gerade nach rechts oder links rutscht
- Frage 1: kann man das mit CSS / JS Magie noch was zaubern?
- Frage 2: könnten wir alternativ doch die einspaltige Variante aus dem Responsive Modus mal im nicht-responsive Mouds probieren (auch wenn dann der schöne diskusive Charakter etwas verloren ginge :(
- diese Unterscheidung macht hier keinen Sinn - könne wir sie Loswerden?
neue Einstellungen in Course / Group Settings
- Allow members to Add News - Dozierende wollen das ggf nicht standardmäßig oder wollen das eben für Ihre Studis aktivieren
- Make News Tab Default Page
- generell sollte das Objekt nicht über dem Post, sondern IM Post angezeigt werden (z.B. unter dem Namen)
- Links solten direkt zum Objekt führen, Beispiel Forum: im Newsbeitrag (Course -> Newsblock ...) ist die Überschriftein Link der direkt zum Post führt. Dies ist hier nicht der Fall, sondern man landet im Forum auf dem Themenliste
- Automatischen Nachladen beim Scrollen wäre super
- alternativ: die ersten 20 anzeigen und unten ein Button "ältere News laden" um wieder 20 zu bekommen
- wenn ein Beitzrag editiert wird, sollte auch das Datum aktualisiert werden
- derzeit bleibt der Beitrag an seiner alten Stelle
- Links im Newsbeitrag: es sollte möglich sein, Links in einem Beitrag platzieren - könnte man die entsprechende Tiny-Funktion aktivieren?
wir hatten allen den Impuls auf einen Post zu antworten bzw ihn zu kommentieren:
- Idee1: das Kommentar-Feature für newsbeiträge nutzen, das ja schon für Dateien, ... existiert. die KOmmentare werden einfach unter dem Newsbeitrag angezeigt
- Idee2: Das Aktionamenü bekommt einen "Anworten" Button, es wird ein neuer Newsbeitrag erstellt und beide werden zusammen aber direkt über- bzw aneinander ganz oben platziert. bei weiteren Antworten kommen immer wieder neue Beiträge drunter
Killing, Alexander [alex], 6.7.2016: Zwischenergebnisse des heutigen Workshops (weiterer Workshop wird benötigt » Workshop-2016-07-28)
- Beiträge sollen standardmäßig auf eine bestimmte Höhe gekürzt werden, per Klick wir der Beitrag dann an seiner Stelle komplett angezeigt (LOgik soll Teil der Timeline-Komponente werden)
- Die Dreiteilung der manuellen News soll in eine Zweiteilung überführt werden: Titel + Content (Tiny, wenn aktiviert)
- Es wird keine horizontale Linie bei Tageswechsel implementiert
- Datumsmarker erscheinen beim ersten Beitrag eines neuen Tages von unten gesehen
- In der zunächst leere Ansicht des News-Screens soll eine Info-Message auffordern einen Newsbeitrag zu verfassen.
- Es soll eine zusätzliche Option implementiert werden, die kontrolliert, ob News Timeline oder Inhaltsseite "Landing Page" ist (Tabreihenfolge entsprechend ändern)
- Die Timeline wird nicht überhalb des Contents dargestellt sondern als separater Reiter
- Es wird kein zusätzlicher Navigations-Button in den Content implementiert
- News bleib im Englischen News, in deutsch Nachricht -> Neuigkeit
- Offen: Wird der Reiter mit "Timeline" oder "News" bezeichnet?
- "Ende der Liste": Per Scrollen sollen automatisch weitere News nachgeladen werden (als Prototyp der evtl. in Zukunft wiederverwendet werden kann)
- News Settings -> Sollen alle in einen Unterrreiter "News Settings" verfrachtet werden
- Neues Recht "Add News": ok, aber in Zukunft evtl. Rechte-Einstellung wie bei Wiki, d.h. das Recht kann ohne "Edit Permission" gesetzt werden
Killing, Alexander [alex], 25. July: Possible solutions for "more" behaviour
Glaubitz, Marko [mglaubitz] Jul 25 2016: The "More" options above look pretty. I would personally go for the first option that does not create a button, but display a "small" text saying "More...".
JourFixe, ILIAS [jourfixe], Timeline workshop at July 28, 2016: Alexander gave an update of the current concept and implementation of the timeline feature. Participants: Coline Kiegel, Marko Glaubitz, Timon Amstutz, Matthias Kunkel, Alexander Killing
- We agree with the new presentation of a content item in the timeline and the idea to fade out longer texts. The default height of a timeline item should allow to present a video with default ratio (16x9) without fading out the video. Headline should only presented in one row (and shortened).
- The settings of the timeline are moved to a subtab of 'News Settings' which is presented when 'News' is activated for the course / group.
- We discussed the position of the Actions menu in timeline items and the option to streamline the presentation of these items with forum postings (where the split button with actions is presented below the forum posting). But we agree that an actions menu on top right is better for timeline items.
- User name and profile photo in a posting item shall be linked to Personal Profile when activated (similar to forum posting).
- We keep the naming discussion open but start for now with "Timeline" for the tab (both German and English)
- No title or other texts should be displayed in bold, becaus the are "unread".
- If items are edited by other users (not the original author) this should be clear in the presentation (edited by...)
- Date/time of the last editing should be displayed, but the item keeps its position (ordered by creation date, not by editing date)
- For future ILIAS versions we would like to define kitchen sink elements that take care of the presentation of comments, news items and forum postings. It should be feasible that they share a common abstract element.
Kiegel, Colin [kiegel] 2016-07-28: The naming question was very controversial in the workshop (mainly "news" vs. "timeline").
It is only a language variable, but "timeline" has two problems
- it describes "how" and not "what" is displayed.
- this will be problematic if future development of this feature introduces new representations like a "list" or "cascading grid". Are we ready to change the name to cascading grid or sorted list in the future?
- this will lead to naming-collisions, if different content uses the same representation. In fact it is the current intention to make this reusable for different content.
- it is inconsistent with existing representations of the same content
- there are already 'news'-blocks on the desktop and content-tab of courses and groups. They have a title too, and it is not timeline.
But please default to a consistent name for all occurences of this feature, like "news" (or "activities", etc.).
IMO this aspect still needs jour fixe discussion before the final release.
JourFixe, ILIAS [jourfixe], August 01, 2016: We highly appreciate the suggested feature and schedule it for 5.2. Open issues can be discussed at the next Jour Fixe at August 15, 2016.
23.08.2016, Glaubitz, Marko [mglaubitz]: The first implementation looks pretty good. However, while testing the feature,I noticed some things in terms of usability that could be improved.
- when objects in subcontainers of the current timeline bearing container prduce news entries it is hard to keep track of what comes from where in the timeline. I propose adding the relative path to the time line items. since each timeline "box" is supposed to use a fixed height, the relative path should be shortened. I think the most useful information could be derived from the last part (N characters) that fit in a single line in a box.
- the content of news items needs to be streamlined, forum entries, for example, behave quite differentyl in terms of their content, in comparison to files, the blog, etc. - this is however wothj a separate feature wiki entry (I will create this soon).
- hiding "automatically generated" news entries can right now only be done by course admin / tutors through a checkbox on the settings page. However, in an active course with lots of uploads and stuff manually created news posts get lost easily. Thus, I propose implementing a toggle switch to hide the autoatically generated news items that is based on the bootstrap toggle group. We are already using this toggle in the interactive video plugin.
Here is, how I would image the toggle switch:
   2018-09-12, Mela, Alix [ILIAS_LM]
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4 Implementation
News timeline has been implemented for 5.2:
- Open Settings-tab of your course.
- Activate "News" in "Additional Features" and "Save".
- ILIAS presents a new sub-tab "News Setting".
If you set the course accrodingly the Content-tab will be moved to second position: The first tab will be "Timeline" showing postings from members.
Users hit "Add News" and can post news to the timeline.
Test Cases
Test cases completed at 2016-08-25 by atoedt
- 12963: Gleichberechtigte selbstgesteuerte studentische Arbeitsgruppe anlegen
- 13021: Rechte für gleichberechtigte, selbstgesteuerte studentische Arbeitsgruppen (Teams)
- 13022: Automatisch erzeugte Neuigkeiten in der Timeline
- 13023: Per Hand Neuigkeiten im Reiter Timeline anlegen
- 13024: Automatische Neuigkeiten in der Timeline unterdrücken
- 13025: Timline ist nicht "Landing Page" der Gruppe
- 13026: Viele Neuigkeiten laden automatisch nach beim Scrollen
- 13027: Eigene Neuigkeiten editieren und löschen
- 13029: Neuigkeiten anderer Benutzer editieren und löschen
Approval
Approved at 23.08.2016 by Glaubitz, Marko [mglaubitz].
Last edited: 12. Sep 2018, 08:25, Mela, Alix [ILIAS_LM]