Hierarchical and temporal navigation¶
| Authors: | Michael JasonSmith; Dan Randow |
|---|---|
| Contact: | Michael JasonSmith <mpj17@onlinegroups.net> |
| Date: | 2015-10-16 |
| Organization: | GroupServer.org |
| Copyright: | This document is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International License by OnlineGroups.Net. |
Hierarchy¶
There is a hierarchy of pages in GroupServer. The primary hierarchy is (from most general to most specific) Site, Group, Topic, Post, Image. This hierarchy is shown in the breadcrumbs going from left to right. Conceptually the site is at the top and any up link goes up to the page that is higher in the hierarchy, so there is a slightly awkward mapping of Left in the breadcrumbs onto Up in the navigation links.
It is possible that in future versions of GroupServer that this mapping may be removed, so the Left navigation button (or swiping to the right) will go the containing (more general) page.
Temporal navigation¶
The temporal navigation of messages in a group may seem inconsistent. However, it follows the principal of supporting the user’s task: follow closely, or keep in the loop. We switch mode because the user is switching mode; this is in tension with consistency.
Follow closely¶
If the user is following something closely then the posts are shown in a strict temporal order with the oldest post first. This is similar to a book, or a diary. There is one page that follows this order: the Topic page. This makes reading the conversation much easier.
Two other pages take their queue from the Topic page for organising the navigation links.
- The Post page has four links: First, Older, Up, Newer, Last.
- The Image page has three links: Older, Up, Newer. The Up link goes to the post.
Because Up has been taken for the page hierarchy, Left has been mapped to Up in the sense of moving higher on the Topic page.
Keep in the loop¶
Keeping in the loop is the other task supported by GroupServer. For interfaces that support this task the posts (or topics) are displayed from newest to oldest. These pages include:
- The Site page, which lists topics
- The Group page that lists topics, post, and files
- The rarely visited Topics page
- The even more rarely visited Posts page
In all these pages the Left navigation button has been mapped to Up in the sense of moving higher on in the list. So as all these interfaces show posts from newest to oldest Left is the same as Newer.