Book Usability
I haven't seen any discussion about Book usability on here yet it's one of the highlighted topics for things that need to be patched in Drupal 7 usability. Does anyone have any thoughts on how Books can be improved. I have a whole module dedicated towards Book usability improvements and while the project as a whole I'm sure implements a bit too much to be rolled into core, it does have a lot of features which make using books in Drupal faster and MUCH more user-friendly thanks to outline designer, thickbox, prepopulate and the ajax modules.
https://elearning.psu.edu/demos/outline_designer/
http://drupal.org/project/outline_designer
Any one else have any thoughts on this? Books frankly suck (in terms of usability) at the moment or at the very least are poorly integrated into the workflow of the system.
Ical feed
Outline
There is also an Outline module (http://drupal.org/project/outline). It adds a bunch of functionalities, and is really complimentary to your own module I think.
If I remember correctly, Outline was created when there were discussions about turning Book module into a "more generic outline functionality", and removing the Book page content type. Outline was supposed to be that improved Book module.
Ya I've talked to the
Ya I've talked to the maintainer of Outline just to make sure we don't overlap on any functionality. I really like his module and once it's out of alpha and to a full release I'd like to make sure my module plays nicely with it (works right now but doesn't implement the functionality) and integrate it into my context menus and what not. I agree, it is a very complementary project (we're looking to use it in house along side outline designer).
"Plaguing the world with Drupal; One Plone, Moodle, Wordpress, Joomla user at a time since 2005." ~ btopro
http://elearning.psu.edu/
http://elearning.psu.edu/projects/
http://elearning.psu.edu/drupalineducation/
I think another major issue
I think another major issue with Books is the navigation interface. Tackling the TOC issue (making the outline more accessible from anywhere in the book) is a good step toward book-content awareness, but the user still has to maneuver around in the book and jumping from page to page in the outline requires the eyes and conscious intent to move from the node to the outline.
An option I've been wondering about is copying the controls to the top of the node. Most users are at least accustomed to the pdf/doc reader interface that puts the arrows on top of the page, and this may help.
Ideas regarding movement within the book pages would be most helpful as well.
Controls at the top would be nice
It probably isn't all that's needed, but if the controls were at the top, a person who decides that they need a different page in the same book would be able to immediately move to the next one. The controls would already be visible, without their having to scroll down.
That in itself would be a big improvement.
What about floating links
What about floating links area that stay at the top of the page / scroll whenever you move down the page similar to the table heading stuff.
"Plaguing the world with Drupal; One Plone, Moodle, Wordpress, Joomla user at a time since 2005." ~ btopro
http://elearning.psu.edu/
http://elearning.psu.edu/projects/
http://elearning.psu.edu/drupalineducation/
Probably unnecessary. I
Probably unnecessary. I think simply having the outline tab actually lead to the outline, instead of a sentence that hints to the possibility of viewing, and editing the outline without actually linking to it would be a huge improvement.
"We are all worms. But I believe that I am a glow-worm." - Winston Churchill
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