[Design] Collection and Share menus

Philippe Bossut pbossut at osafoundation.org
Thu Jan 11 23:50:52 PST 2007


Hi,

I wanted to know if I'm the only one confused by the new "Share" menu 
and how things migrated from "Collection" to "Share". Some question to 
the design team:
- I think the distinction between a shared collection and a collection 
subscribed read/write is lost on the user at the UI level at least. OK, 
the first one is in your Cosmo account while the other is someone else's 
account but, apart from that, is there any other difference? Does it 
warrant to have 2 different menu items to "Unsubscribe/Unpublish" them 
(they are mutually exclusive)? FWIW, the effect of Unsubscribe and 
Unpublish is essentially the same for the user (keep a version of the 
collection local, don't sync anymore)
- I know that we resisted using "Publish" in favor of "Share" as a verb 
(though you can push something to Cosmo without sharing it with 
anyone...). But why then is the opposite action of "Share" named 
"Unpublish"?
- I feel very confusing to have the "Sync All" actions under the "Share" 
menu, especially wrt to email. That's not where I instinctively looked 
for it. It was under "Collection" before (not great either). May be 
those "global network actions" should be under "File" (sort of a catch 
all menu).
- "Take offline" really confused me. I though is was a sort of 
"unpublish" at first. I mean, taking something offline usually means 
taking it out of a server, not suspending communication entirely. Or may 
be the thinking was about the machine (as in "take this machine 
offline"). Having this under Share though didn't help. Renaming it "Go 
offline" seems less ambiguous (especially since it applies to other 
things than collection sharing)
- The use of separators feels a little arbitrary. e.g., under the 
Collection menu, why is "rename" grouped with "new" and separated from 
"collection color"? Looks like "rename" and "collection color" are of 
the same level (change attributes of the currently active collection), 
while "new" is clearly a generic action.

To cut through the chase, here's my proposal:

Collection:

New Collection
Subscribe...
------
Rename
Change color
Add <collection> to Dashboard

Notes:
- Separate generic from actions that apply to the active collection
- "Subscribe" seems better suited here than under "Share" since it's 
creating a collection locally. After all, it's not shared as long as 
it's not even subscribed...
- Use action verb for color ("Change") instead of substantive 
("Collection color")

Share:

Share <collection>
Unsubscribe/Unpublish <collection>
Sync <collection>
Manage <collection>
Copy sharing ticket(s) to Clipboard
------
Restore published shares...
Freebusy

Notes:
- Separate actions that apply to the active collection from actions that 
apply to the user's whole set of collections
- One single menu item for Unpublish/Unsubscribe
- Use "sharing ticket" instead of "URL" (though we might trade a 
jargonic term for another, at least it sort of hint at what this URL 
will do...)
- Use the name of the collection instead of "Share" in the "Manage" item 
(that applies only to the active collection)
- Assumes "Sync all", "Go offline" and "Set Auto-sync intervals..." are 
moved to the File menu

Cheers,
- Philippe


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