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News Timeline: Comments

Page Overview

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1 Initial Problem
2 Conceptual Summary
3 User Interface Modifications
- 3.1 List of Affected Views
- 3.2 User Interface Details
- 3.3 New User Interface Concepts
4 Technical Information
5 Contact
6 Funding
7 Discussion
8 Implementation

1 Initial Problem

It is not possible for learners to comment on entries in the news timeline.

2 Conceptual Summary

Learners should be able to comment on entries in the news timeline. Main actions:

Create Comment (See below)
Edit Comment (Only allowed if user is owner of the comment)
Delete Comment (Only allowed if user is owner of the comment)

Comments consist of simple text content. Links are automatically made clickable in the presentation.

Comments can be created for all timeline entries that have been manuall created.

For timeline entries that have been created automatically, the behaviour depends on the component that originally triggered the news entry:

File: For newly created or updated file objects, the comments of the file object are integrated into the timeline (the availability depends on the comments setting of the object).
Wiki: News related to newly created or updated wiki pages, integrate the comments of the wiki page (if activated) into the timeline.
Forum Postings: News related to forum postings will not provide the comment feature. Instead a link "answer in forum" will be provided.

3 User Interface Modifications

3.1 List of Affected Views

Course » Timeline

3.2 User Interface Details

3.3 New User Interface Concepts

{If the proposal introduces any completely new user interface elements, please provide a link to separate feature wiki entries for each of them according to the kitchen sink template.}

4 Technical Information

No technical issues.

5 Contact

Author of the Request: Marko Glaubitz, Universität Freiburg
Maintainer: Killing, Alexander [alex]
Implementation of the feature is done by: Killing, Alexander [alex]

6 Funding

If you are interest in funding this feature, please add your name and institution to this list.

Universität Freiburg

7 Discussion

Killing, Alexander [alex], 27 July 2017: I support the idea. However I am not sure about the best way to present comments. Do we want an input field under each timeline item?

Kunkel, Matthias [mkunkel], September 19, 2017: Two comments:

Do I understand the request right that commenting is enabled automatically for all courses / timelines? I strongly recommend to introdu a new setting in the sub-tab for 'Timeline' where this can be set. I am sure not everybody wants to support commenting in the timeline.
I would not add a comment input by default under every timeline entry. This would blow up the screen unnecessarily. How about relying on mouse-over of an entry and either fading out an input or just showing a 'Comment' icon that loads an input form when clicking on it?

Amstutz, Timon [amstutz], September 21, 2017:

I agree with matthias concerning the necessary setting.
Mouseover is bad due to difficult behaviour on devices with a touch interface, however I agree that the full input might be very obstrussive. How about well placed Add Glyph?
Can you not comment own content? Looks like it on the screen. Would be bad I think.
@Alex: would you use a special version of your Listing Panel here?

Lauener, Hansjörg [lauener], 25.9.2017.
I agree with MK, that show every comment in the list would blow up the list.

Maybe we should reause and maybe improve the actual implementation of the Comment/Notes and the view with a Modal?

News should focus on "News", comments are an (important) add-on
There are still some functionalities in the comment (like sorting)

Please also think:

Teachers still have no possibility to "see" if someone adds a public comment, we should think about the notification.
Teachers cannot "close" a discussion

JourFixe, ILIAS [jourfixe], September 25, 2017: We highly appreciate this suggestion and schedule it for 5.4. Instead of offering an text input under every news entry we prefer to add 'Comment' shy button and re-use the existing comment modal implementation. Editing and deleting comments is dependant from the administration settings in Administration » Personal Desktop.

Glaubitz, Marko [mglaubitz], 29.09.2017: In the rpocess of concepting the News Timeline: Notification on Interaction we have enecountered a coneptual issue that should be discussed again by the Jour Fixe.
The comments that belong to automatically created news entries should rather stick to the news entry and should not be created as comments that stick to the repo-object that the news entry refers to. This would enable us to include the comments that belong to news entires in the "daily news digest" mail without bending the boundaries of this service.

Here an example: if a user comments on the News entry "new Wiki page has been created" the comments on the timeline belong to the fact that the page has been created and not to the contents of the page and sould stay "outside" of the wiki comments (the page as such can be commented "within" the wiki).
The JF decision last time would have led to mixing "internal" comments (such as comments of wiki pages" with comments that belong to news entries on the timline.

Sesterhenn, Fabian [sesterhenn], 27.06.2018: Has the issue Marko mentioned been resolved by the JF? Personally, I don't think that comments in the timeline should be attached to the object. Or maybe both is needed. On the one hand our users already use the timeline as a new tool to communicate within a group or a course. In this case a comment on a post in the timeline has no connection to a specific object. On the other hand, when it comes to comments on automatically generated news items for objects on the timeline I can see the connection. Or maybe I am missing the point here?

Killing, Alexander [alex], 22 Oct 2018: It has been implemented with the improvement mentioned by Marco on 29.09.2017. This has still to be verified by the JF, though.

EDIT: NO, this has been discussed, but unfortunately the JF decision has not been copied here:

Oct 23, 2017: We appreciate the suggestion for an "extension of "daily" news digest mail subscription cron job" as described in 2.1 and schedule it for 5.4. Comments should be assigned to news entries (also for automatically created news). The suggestions for an auto-refresh (2.2) and OSD (2.3) should be tackled as separate feature requests.

See News Timeline: Notification on Interaction