[1] | 1 | qPloneTiles |
---|
| 2 | |
---|
| 3 | #120: Support and use "Tile" links |
---|
| 4 | |
---|
| 5 | One of the classic, testable usability laws is Fitt's |
---|
| 6 | Law, which simply says that the efficiency of a user |
---|
| 7 | interface item is directly proportional to its size. |
---|
| 8 | Plone currently has a lot of user interface items that |
---|
| 9 | could have bigger clickable areas without changing the |
---|
| 10 | elements themselves. |
---|
| 11 | |
---|
| 12 | Proposed by |
---|
| 13 | Alexander Limi |
---|
| 14 | Proposal type |
---|
| 15 | User interface |
---|
| 16 | Assigned to release |
---|
| 17 | * Plone 3.0 |
---|
| 18 | State |
---|
| 19 | being-discussed |
---|
| 20 | |
---|
| 21 | |
---|
| 22 | Motivation |
---|
| 23 | |
---|
| 24 | A lot of the user interface elements in Plone only work when you click the links they define instead of the entire UI |
---|
| 25 | element. This is bad UI, although most web-based systems work this way. |
---|
| 26 | I have already experimented with changing this for a limited set of items in previous Plone versions; in Plone 2.0 I made |
---|
| 27 | the entire item in the navigation tree clickable and it indicates when it is selected with a block of color around itself, |
---|
| 28 | so you know you can click (this doesn't work in Internet Explorer because it's a buggy piece of crap, more about that |
---|
| 29 | later ;). In Plone 2.1 I made all the portlet items be clickable in the entire area through a display:block definition of |
---|
| 30 | the link tag. |
---|
| 31 | It's time to take this to the next level. |
---|
| 32 | |
---|
| 33 | |
---|
| 34 | Proposal |
---|
| 35 | |
---|
| 36 | Because of the limitations (as far as I have found, at least), it's hard to make certain elements entirely clickable |
---|
| 37 | through re-defining the link tag only. In a separate project I was involved in, we used a tiny piece of JS to assign |
---|
| 38 | clickable behaviour to an arbitrary element, which worked well. |
---|
| 39 | (Note that the normal "read more" or whatever link still remains, so it's not removing links for people that have JS |
---|
| 40 | turned off or browsing via lynx or similar — this is merely augmenting the link behaviour, not moving it into JS.) |
---|
| 41 | This also has the advantage of being able to make any area clickable. My pet peeve is that Plone in "Summary view" |
---|
| 42 | doesn't accept clicks anywhere within the area of one of the items listed, but only on the links. The interface would be |
---|
| 43 | so much more efficient if we could click anywhere within that item's area. |
---|
| 44 | |
---|
| 45 | |
---|
| 46 | Implementation |
---|
| 47 | |
---|
| 48 | We should find a good way to define an area as clickable. In the project I was in, we defined that on the tag itself, and |
---|
| 49 | did it explicitly, but this can possibly be improved. |
---|