CUNY Academic Commons

Thanks, Colin. The idea of showing a link there, and showing it only when filtering by folder, seems like a decent idea to me. I'm unsure whether it's sufficient - people might expect to have more of a generic view of all folders available.

That said, we could consider approaching this in a conservative way. Colin's suggestion (or something like it) requires just a single new view - editing a single folder. If we decide in the future, due to user feedback, that we need a second new view - a listing of all folders, with edit links - it could be added alongside the single-edit view. That way we don't spend extra design/dev time building something that people don't really need.

I'll be happy to follow whatever Sonja suggests :-D

Resurfacing this for fall release brainstorming, and perhaps Sonja's input to start - what do you think of my idea to offer a simple/gradual solution to the folder-renaming problem to start, where you can rename any folder once you've filtered into that folder, but there isn't a management/renaming view that shows all folders? Or do you think there's an achievable design alternative that offers something closer to the overarching view?

FWIW, I think that the user in #12821 would have been been served fine by the simpler option to just rename individual folders as needed once he was inside of them. That seems like a pretty edge case already.

Thanks Colin and Boone,
I just tried to do some sketches, but it adds complexity. I'll think this through a little more.

Thanks for the update Sonja, just let me know if I can help talk or look through anything you're working on!

Thanks for working on this, Sonja!

I like the positioning of 'Edit Folders' in the dropdown. And page 3 looks like a good and simply way of displaying editable folders.

You say that renaming will happen in an overlay. Elsewhere in the Library (and in general on the Commons) we use overlays for confirmation, as in the case of delete, but not really for editing of this sort. As such, it doesn't feel quite right to me. A couple other possibilities: (a) When you click Rename, the name of the folder turns into a text field; when in 'edit mode', we'd need additional action links 'Save' and 'Cancel', perhaps alongside 'Rename' and 'Delete'. (b) Clicking Rename opens a small "drawer" underneath the folder name where the editing can take place.

This is exactly what I was envisioning. Thanks, Sonja! Once others have signed off on this, please reassign the ticket to me for implementation.

Looks great to me. Thank you, Sonja!

Looks good to me too!

As we discussed in the Friday group meeting, Sonja's mockup is close to addressing the original issue of creating a folder management tool, but it spurs other issues. There was confusion about what "Delete" means on the management page -- it's meant to mean "delete this folder (i.e. label)" but can be taken to mean "delete this folder and all of its contents."

There was agreement that it would be good to have BOTH functions, but I'm not sure yet how feasible that is. The "delete label" function seems easy enough with some clearer language, but the "delete all contents" requires some backend work. And what if an item is in multiple folders?

We discussed keeping the Rename / Delete language we have now, and the Rename functionality, but when the Delete overlay pops up with a click, there will be two options:

1. Delete this folder label only.
2. Delete the folder entirely (label and all contents).

Perhaps we can move ahead with this once Sonja and Boone weigh in from their ends. Two somewhat related things that came up (which I can break out into other tickets if we'd like) are whether we can show what folder an item is in on the main Library screen, perhaps with another Folder column that links into each listed Folder, and whether we need bulk editing features in the library to remove items in batches, add them to folders, etc. Perhaps the former is easier to implement than the latter, but let's go over it.

And what if an item is in multiple folders?

As currently implemented, items can only be in a single folder.

We discussed keeping the Rename / Delete language we have now, and the Rename functionality, but when the Delete overlay pops up with a click, there will be two options:

"Folder label" is still unclear, IMO. Here's a suggestion for another direction for language:

1. Delete folder and its contents (this action cannot be reversed)
2. Delete folder but keep its contents (content will be placed in the top level of the Library)

Two somewhat related things that came up

These should definitely each get their own tickets.

This looks good to me, Sonja!

If a user clicks Delete but then wants to change their mind, they'd have to click the X button. Do we feel this is obvious enough?

Boone Gorges wrote:

This looks good to me, Sonja!

If a user clicks Delete but then wants to change their mind, they'd have to click the X button. Do we feel this is obvious enough?

I think it's common enough of a convention. With the redesign, I'd like to try to create stronger patterns for common use cases like an overlay modal. If anyone on the team feels strongly about a "cancel" or "dismiss" option, I'm not opposed to add it. I stayed on the side of simplicity and focused on the most important things as CTAs.

I'm happy with "x for cancel" - IMO there's no need for an additional button. I was just raising it for others to consider :)

I think that the overlay is looking good and the X works to get out of it if need be. One language thing that might be good -- say "Delete folder but keep its contents" as we do now, then underneath say "Contents will be placed in the top level of the Library." Saying "Content" singular there is just a bit unclear to me.

It looks good to me!

Boone Gorges wrote:

Hi Sonja - Thanks very much for the latest version of the comps. I've started working through them and I've got a couple of questions for you.

1. Could you please provide a folder icon? I'm using Dashicons but they don't have an icon for a closed folder, so I may need an image, similarly formatted to the file-type icons you provided (pdf, etc)

The designs have a closed folder icon already. Do you mean you need an open folder icon?

2. You've got a button for 'Add New Folder' but there's no mockup for it. I've left this out for the time being. IMO the ability to add an empty folder could create some confusion, since at the moment the folder filter dropdown on the Library view doesn't show empty folders (though the Folder dropdown when editing/creating an item does). But if we do want this, I'd like some visuals. This could be something as simple as a new item at the top/bottom of the folder list, in Edit mode, with a blank title.

Good points. Let's discuss today.

3. For the action links (Cancel, Delete, Rename) I added underlining on hover.

Great!

4. For AJAX animations: When renaming a folder, I added a spinner to the 'Update' button. This follows the convention when creating or editing a library item. When deleting, the dialog library I'm using makes it difficult to use spinners (because I can't easily keep the dialog open after the user clicks). So instead, I'm setting opacity:.5 for the whole interface and disabling other links until the request is complete; the user knows it's ready when the opacity returns and the deleted item is removed from the list.

I like this transition!

A brief gif is attached, which demonstrates most of the functionality. I'll also put it up on cdev for anyone who's interested in initial testing. Let's hold off on full-fledged testing until after Sonja and I have finished our first rounds of design sign-off.

The flow looks great in the gif! Thanks for sharing.

The designs have a closed folder icon already. Do you mean you need an open folder icon?

No, I mean: can you provide me with an image file?

Sonja, we'll look here for the "Add new folder" mockup we discussed on the call when you have it. We talked about how it could be good for people to be able to add folders this way, when they'll have zero items initially, rather than just during an individual item upload. One example would be a professor trying to add many folders quickly, or adding a folder that students will then upload assignments into later.

Boone's last gif mockup could change based on our #13371 progress with displaying folder names more prominently in the Library, but we'll continue that conversation there. I think the functionality is still the same at this point.

Boone's last gif mockup

Minor correction, but it's not a mockup. The feature has been built :-D But yes, the question of how folders are displayed in the Library itself (as opposed to the Edit Folders pane) is separate altogether from this ticket.

Duly noted, and mockup mockery duly absorbed. Thanks for clarifying, and of course for getting this built so quickly!

that makes sense to me

Looks good!

Agreed, it's great!

Looks great, Boone! Thanks for the swift implementation!

Thanks, Sonja. I've implemented these changes.

Thanks for the screenshots, Colin. I'm not seeing either of these on cdev. It looks like Scott might've been testing using a browser that was caching the production stylesheets. Try again, loading in a private window, or after clearing the browser cache.

Thanks, Boone. I double-checked in cdev and wasn't able to see these mobile issues, either. I'll loop back with Scott and make sure he's testing with the right window/cache setup.