Features / Usability

Posted by kbalk 04 Aug 2004 05:45 GMT-0000 posts: 4

I’m sorry … I think we’re going in a circle here, so I think it would help if I tell you that I’m creating a web site for a local Habitat for Humanity affiliate. They’re a small, understaffed office and the website will be used to push information out to the world, but not to interact with the world via the website. I think perhaps in time, when they have the resources and the comfort level, they may want to do more with their website, but now is not that time.

So I want a simple non-interactive web site, but it’ll have photo galleries of build sites, calendars for their build events, and a FAQ. There won’t be any distinctions at this time as to the kinds of possible viewers of this website, i.e., no groups should be needed.

>> Well, you'd designate it as your home page in Admin General Preferences as I
>> described above. Now, this file could be anything, so the question is what you
>> want to offer to your visitors. What Tiki content features do you want to use?

Good! … This is what I was initially trying to find out. In my first posting I described my mistaken attempt to use an URL vs. a URI in the Admin General Preferences. Now I know it has to be a URI and I was thinking of making the URI refer to a Wiki page that looked like my originally proposed index.html file. And there would be no login (see below), so I’m looking at different home pages for developers vs. users.

There are no special wiki features referenced in that home page. However, I would have buttons in the top bar that would lead to pages that use features such as a FAQ or photo gallery. The ))HowDidTheyDoIt(( pages show examples of similar menu buttons in the top bar.

Now … Does this mean I need a .php file (e.g. hfh-index.php) that does the tiki-setup and then does the relevant things found in tiki-index.php? If so, would I create a wiki page linked from the standard ))HomePage(( and then refer to that new wiki page in my hfh-index.php file?

And then I’m not sure how to handle the buttons in the top bar. If the buttons go to specific .php files, how can I refer to specific Wiki pages from the .php files? Is there a particular set of files that would show me how this is done?

>> I assume you are familiar with the suggested procedure for making a new Tiki theme;
>> i.e., start with an existing theme and modify it. But if it's function that you want to
>> control rather than

Yes. And it’ll be function and theme. I got a set of zipped theme files from mods.tikiwiki.org by contacting one of the submitters directly and I’ll take a look at that files as an example. BTW: all of the zip files for the themes appear to be corrupted and someone already noted it in a comment for one of the themes; that’s why I had to contact the person directly. I’m not sure just who to notify of the problem since all of them are bad.

I’ve also seen the documentation on themes and the ))HowDidTheyDoIt(( page, so all of that information should help me.

But again, I won’t be distinguishing the types of users; so all users will have the same functionality and will see the same theme.

>> But is a log-in form on the public index page really objectionable?

I think it would be visually distracting. Developers or maintainers would only use a login and they are not the key users of that site, so esthetically it seems wrong to include a login box. The affiliate office might have to deal with questions from people asking how they can obtain logins and that would be distraction for them.

One of the “best Tiki sites??? is a commercial site for a salon and that doesn’t have a login box, so there must be a way to handle this.

> Without a login, you can act on user preferences and display different themes or pages,
> so I think they have to be distinct.
>
>> I'm not sure what you mean here.

My apologies … I wanted to say you *cannot* act on user preferences if there is no way for a user to log in.

I hope this makes it clearer. Thank you for your patience!
Karri