Add New Item to Item Group from Action Menu

1 Initial Problem

This is one part of a bigger feature request to simplify the interaction between the ILIAS Page Edior and the creation of ILIAS Objects. It was decided to takle this problem in smaller requests addressing specific issues. This request proposes a simplification of the process of adding items to an Item List. The specific problems addressed are:

• Many clicks are needed if you want to add an ILIAS Item to a Item List (Create Item -> go back -> open Item List -> Add Item or Open Item List -> Create Item -> Loose the Context you where in and find your way back to it)
• The problem becomes even bigger if you start of in the ILIAS Page Editor of a container object.

2 Conceptual Summary

To achieve this simplification:

• An entry "Add New Item" is added to the Action Menu of the Item Group.
• An entry "Add New Item" is added to the overlay menu of the Resource List section of the ILIAS Page Editor.
• The behaviour of the "Add New Item" button in the "Materials" view of the Item Group as well as the "Add New Item" entry in the over menu of the Resource List section of the ILIAS Page Editor (see previous bullet point) are differentiated from the normal creation of objects. As it will always be impossible to get back to the starting context (i.e. either the "Materials" of the Item Group or the "Customize Page" view of the container object) once control is handed over to a newly created object (by redirecting to its "Settings" view as required by the guidelines (Guideline Creation of Repository Objects) , this actions should be considered as creating a draft object for later completion and should thus redirect back to the corresponding view after creation. The implementation of this depends on the discussion around and implementation of the Guideline Creation of Repository Objects.

3 User Interface Modifications

3.1 List of Affected Views

• Action menu of Item Lists
• Overlay menu of Resource List elements in the ILIAS Page Editor
• New "Select Item Type" view, showing the same content as the "Add New Item" dropdown

3.2 User Interface Details

An additional entry "Add New Item" is added to the top of the action menu of the Item Group.

An additonal new entry "Add New Item" is added to the bottom of the overlay menu of the ILIAS Page Editor of resource list elements.

As it would not be practical to show the selection of the item type as a sub menu a new screen "Type of Item to Be Created" is shown before creating the object on standard screens. This would most probably be implemented as a Panel with Sub Panels.

3.3 New User Interface Concepts

Killing, Alexander [alex], 24 Jan 2020: The object type selection (last step above) is an interesting dialog, that could be discussed separately imo. For the process discussed on this page, it would be good, if the type selection would be presented in a modal. This would work for both scenarios. Personally I like the current responsive 3 column layout with sub headings a lot, as it gives a great overview. However Moodle offers additional explanation texts for each object type in a similar dialog. This seems to be very valuable. Maybe we come up with a solution that combines a good overview and explanation texts in one view.

4 Technical Information

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5 Contact

• Author of the Request: Stephan Winiker
• Maintainer: Alexander Killing
• Implementation of the feature is done by: {The maintainer must add the name of the implementing developer.}

6 Funding

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

• …

7 Discussion

Killing, Alexander [alex], 24 Jan 2020: I support this idea in general. There is a subtle difference between "adding" and "creating". In the context of the item group "add" could mean "add an existing" object to the group.

JourFixe, ILIAS [jourfixe], 03 FEB 2020 : We had a longer discussion about the different options and preferred workflows of adding / creating / embedding objects and ask for an extra round to clarify the problems and find solutions before scheduling this feature. Timon is interested to support this refinement.

8 Implementation

{The maintainer has to give a description of the final implementation and add screenshots if possible.}

Test Cases

Test cases completed at {date} by {user}

• {Test case number linked to Testrail} : {test case title}

Approval

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