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Revision of Public Comments Overview

1 Initial Problem

The "Public Comments" (Communication menu) consists of legacy components and cannot be accessed via the central Kitchensink components, nor does it benefit functionally from changes to the framework.

In addition, the page currently uses a combination of multiple selection and content display, which should be revised.

In the context of these adjustments, the existing functions should also be reconsidered and conceptually revised.

2 Conceptual Summary

Public comments can be added to various ILIAS objects if the option has been activated. They are used to start a discussion or to place one's own opinion and information publicly for others to see. The Public Comments overview page offers the possibility to view your own public comments collected in one place and in connection with the other comments on the same object.

The following information should be displayed for the comments:

• content of the comment
• User (profile picture, name (if available), ILIAS user name)
• date of last change or creation
• path to the object to which the note was attached

Each own comment should still be editable and able to be deleted.

2.1 Add Toolbar

A toolbar is introduced.

2.2 Introduce new filter

2.3 Transfer to ListingPanel

A standard listing panel is to be used to display the comments. This allows the content of the comment as well as additional information and actions to be displayed. 

• On Comment Screen (Communication > Comments) the Standard Listing Panel should be used.
• Wherever comments are displayed (e.g. Learning Module > Comments > Modal or Learning Module > Page > Comments), the ListingPanel should be used.

All comments are displaced chronologically (last comment on top) and grouped by object.

2.4 Actions

2.5 Abandon Add Comment Input Field

Currently, comments can be added directly from the comments page. To do this, an object must first be selected, then a new comment can be added to this object.

To simplify the page, it should only be used to represent and edit or delete existing comments. Therefore, we recommend to remove the Input Field and the "Add Comment" action from this screen. Via the link to an object type (origin of comment) of an existing comment, users can go directly to an object and add new comments from there.

3 User Interface Modifications

3.1 List of Affected Views

• Communication > Comments
• ILIAS Objects > Tab Info
• ILIAS Objects > Button Actions > Comments > Modal
• Learning Module > Page > Comments at the bottom of the page

3.2 User Interface Details

3.3 New User Interface Concepts

Use existing KS-elements like Standard Listing Panel and Standard Filter

The standard listing panel needs to be extended so that it can display the letter or picture avatar.

3.4 Accessibility Implications

• When displaying the modal, the focus should be directly in the input field.
• For the Letter Avatar, make sure that there are no redundant descriptions. For the Letter Avatar, it would be sufficient if, for example, "user image" is read aloud by a screen reader. Should be taken into account when installing the Letter Avatar in the Listing Panel.

4 Technical Information

No technicall issues.

5 Privacy

See Notes and Comments PRIVACY.md

6 Security

No security issues.

7 Contact

• Author of the Request: Seiler, Yvonne [yvseiler] (Universität Bern), Zenzen, Enrico [ezenzen]
• Maintainer: Killing, Alexander [alex]
• Implementation of the feature is done by: {The maintainer must add the name of the implementing developer.}

8 Funding

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

• Technische Hochschule OWL
• LIMo

9 Discussion

JourFixe, ILIAS [jourfixe], 21 MAR 2022 : We highly appreciate this suggestion and the use of KS elements for this feature. Before scheduling the feature for ILIAS 8 we would like to have the following changes and clarifications:

1. We have to keep the HTML export for being GDPR compliant.
2. The title of panels should not only be the object title but the title of the component where a comment has been made because the sorting of objects with comments is made by date and contradicts a clustering of objects by object type.
3. A better label for the view control sorting would be nice to clarify that sorting is by date.

The reported behaviour that comments are provided to copied objects too, should be analysed is not an intended behaviour of this feature.

JourFixe, ILIAS [jourfixe], 04 APR 2022 : Thanks for revising the feature request. We highly appreciate the suggestion and accept the feature for ILIAS 8. Filter should be deactivated by default to show all comments.

10 Implementation

The implementation contains the major switch to the KS elements. The forms have been transformed to KS forms as well. However the implementation does not include the intended move to mix embedded (in the page) listings with modal workflows. Reasons:

• The current implementation completely acts in one area (one DIV), list presentation, add dialog, edit dialog, deletion dialog are all in the same area. This area can be either embedded in the page or in a modal. But it stays in this area.
• Mixing embedded and modal interations would create redundant listing presentations (one embedded, one in the modal).
• This would also result in a lot of code overhead, e.g. if a new comment is saved, the code would need to check, if a) we are in a modal, but with a "background embedded presentation", then close the modal and rerender the background presentation or b) we are in a modal without background presentation. In this case don't close the modal and rerender the modal. This would be necessary for all kind of actions like create, edit and delete. We should avoid this additional code.

This is also the reason why the "Add Comment/Note" button should always be at the same place (not in a toolbar, that is not present on the info screen or "far away" like in the learning modules or wiki pages. The Add button is always directly on top of the Listing Panel, it only hides the Add form.

This is an example for the "Add" action. Everything happens in the location where the widget is initially rendered. In all cases the same thing happens. The "Add" button just shows the form at the current location. The "mixed" mode would require to either a) show the form in the current location or b) open a modal and rerender the list including the form. This kind of conditional code would be needed for all Buttons and Dropdown actions.

Test Cases

• 2022-08-05 by  Tödt, Alexandra [atoedt]
• 32095 : Kommentare im Bereich Kommunikation aufrufen
• 49975 : Kommentare im Bereich Kommunikation drucken
• 49976 :  Kommentare im Bereich Kommunikation sortieren
• 49977 : Kommentare im Bereich Kommunikation filtern

Approval

Approved at 2022-05-11 by Stake, Sebastian [sstake].