Did a quick mockup of a floating/togglable table of contents for the mobile view:
http://svn.wikimedia.org/svnroot/mediawiki/trunk/mockups/mobile-sections/ind...
* sets up section 0 as a togglable section as well * on narrow screens, ToC shows fullscreen, triggered by a floating fixed button in the corner, so it's always available * on wider screens (such as tablets), ToC shows as a fixed sidebar
This is a fairly primitive quicky mockup and requires position:fixed to work ('for reals' would need some smarts for some platforms to scroll things around) and makes no attempt for things to be formatted nicely. ;) Clicking a section in the toc bar also does a toggle rather than unconditional _show_, so sometimes hides things instead. ;)
Seems to work in iOS 5 (iPod Touch and iPad) and Android 2.3 (Nexus 1 stock browser), as well as on desktop Firefox.
Any thoughts? I kinda like the notion of having navigation controls always accessible; perhaps tweak things with a nicer section list and displaying only one section at a time by default.
(A lot of portal-style pages also interact poorly with our mobile section collapse/expand right now, so that might need some adjustment as well...)
-- brion
So I'm torn on this. I like the tablet mockup with a table of contents on the side (though I actually tend to use the normal view on a tablet) but am a bit skeptical about the phone sized one.
- The small issue: The floating contents button covers up a bit of content (not much obviously but anything will while scrolling) and has some oddities while using. - The bigger issue is fairly easy to fix: There is no way to escape out of the contents section (like an x or back) other then clicking a section once it's opened which was confusing when I wanted to drop back to the main list of condensed sections.
The biggest thing though is more of a gut feeling. It just feels... clunky. I think that if using the site myself I'd rather use the, already hidden, sections (pressing show/hide as needed) rather then the contents and save the extra click each time. Having to click over in the corner to get a table of contents seems a bit superfluous when the section list (with a show/hide) essentially acts as the same thing showing what is available.
James
On Sun, Dec 11, 2011 at 11:35 AM, Brion Vibber bvibber@wikimedia.orgwrote:
Did a quick mockup of a floating/togglable table of contents for the mobile view:
http://svn.wikimedia.org/svnroot/mediawiki/trunk/mockups/mobile-sections/ind...
- sets up section 0 as a togglable section as well
- on narrow screens, ToC shows fullscreen, triggered by a floating fixed
button in the corner, so it's always available
- on wider screens (such as tablets), ToC shows as a fixed sidebar
This is a fairly primitive quicky mockup and requires position:fixed to work ('for reals' would need some smarts for some platforms to scroll things around) and makes no attempt for things to be formatted nicely. ;) Clicking a section in the toc bar also does a toggle rather than unconditional _show_, so sometimes hides things instead. ;)
Seems to work in iOS 5 (iPod Touch and iPad) and Android 2.3 (Nexus 1 stock browser), as well as on desktop Firefox.
Any thoughts? I kinda like the notion of having navigation controls always accessible; perhaps tweak things with a nicer section list and displaying only one section at a time by default.
(A lot of portal-style pages also interact poorly with our mobile section collapse/expand right now, so that might need some adjustment as well...)
-- brion
Mobile-l mailing list Mobile-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l
On Sun, Dec 11, 2011 at 11:00 PM, James Alexander jalexander@wikimedia.orgwrote:
So I'm torn on this. I like the tablet mockup with a table of contents on the side (though I actually tend to use the normal view on a tablet) but am a bit skeptical about the phone sized one.
- The small issue: The floating contents button covers up a bit of
content (not much obviously but anything will while scrolling) and has some oddities while using.
- The bigger issue is fairly easy to fix: There is no way to escape
out of the contents section (like an x or back) other then clicking a section once it's opened which was confusing when I wanted to drop back to the main list of condensed sections.
The biggest thing though is more of a gut feeling. It just feels... clunky. I think that if using the site myself I'd rather use the, already hidden, sections (pressing show/hide as needed) rather then the contents and save the extra click each time. Having to click over in the corner to get a table of contents seems a bit superfluous when the section list (with a show/hide) essentially acts as the same thing showing what is available.
Of course if you're in the middle of some text, those show/hide buttons are potentially a long-distance scroll away, whereas a floating button is always accessible... Generally the initial section should be initially expanded (which pushes all those sections down in the first place in most cases too); if it's not that's a bug in the current mockup. :)
What if, instead of just the contents button, it were a toolbar giving immediate access to search, contents, and settings?
-- brion
I think the toolbar would be nicer actually. Are you thinking just have it sit on top/bottom?
On Sun, Dec 11, 2011 at 11:14 PM, Brion Vibber bvibber@wikimedia.orgwrote:
On Sun, Dec 11, 2011 at 11:00 PM, James Alexander < jalexander@wikimedia.org> wrote:
So I'm torn on this. I like the tablet mockup with a table of contents on the side (though I actually tend to use the normal view on a tablet) but am a bit skeptical about the phone sized one.
- The small issue: The floating contents button covers up a bit of
content (not much obviously but anything will while scrolling) and has some oddities while using.
- The bigger issue is fairly easy to fix: There is no way to escape
out of the contents section (like an x or back) other then clicking a section once it's opened which was confusing when I wanted to drop back to the main list of condensed sections.
The biggest thing though is more of a gut feeling. It just feels... clunky. I think that if using the site myself I'd rather use the, already hidden, sections (pressing show/hide as needed) rather then the contents and save the extra click each time. Having to click over in the corner to get a table of contents seems a bit superfluous when the section list (with a show/hide) essentially acts as the same thing showing what is available.
Of course if you're in the middle of some text, those show/hide buttons are potentially a long-distance scroll away, whereas a floating button is always accessible... Generally the initial section should be initially expanded (which pushes all those sections down in the first place in most cases too); if it's not that's a bug in the current mockup. :)
What if, instead of just the contents button, it were a toolbar giving immediate access to search, contents, and settings?
-- brion
