[Design] Design Session 2 on Stamping and Communications

[Morgen Sagen]

On Mar 14, 2006, at 10:58 PM, Philippe Bossut wrote:

> Morgen Sagen wrote:
>> Following up on the meeting we just had, here are some mockups of  
>> a detail view showing how stamping and linking could be unified:
>>
>>    http://wiki.osafoundation.org/bin/view/Journal/LinkingAndStamping
> Excellent. Note however that such a UI would break the current  
> assumption (made by the Detail View) that we display one item and  
> one item only...

Actually, even today there *are* multiple items being displayed in  
the detail view, it's just that the user may not think of them that  
way.  For example, each email address in the To: field of an email  
item is a distinct item, as is the Location field of a calendar event.

> Well, may be that's an assumption we need to break but moving from  
> displaying one item to displaying one item + the graph of linked  
> items (which can branch and nest quite deeply) is not easy. On  
> further reflection I think I would rather see for an item a list of  
> directly linked items and allow the user to drill down rather than  
> have nested sections. Sort of an "item browser" so to speak with  
> clickable links from one item to the next (and a back button...).  
> That would solve the real estate issue and the "hierarchical" issue  
> that your proposal has IMO...

What I like about my proposal is that when all of the linked items  
are 'collapsed' you essentially have the item list you want; if you  
want to see more detail about a linked item you don't necessarily  
have to leave the context you are in.   I see that I neglected to  
include in my mock-ups some affordance for navigating to the detail  
view of any of the linked items, but I did intend the user to be able  
to click on a linked item and have the detail view switch to that item.

~morgen