Display modified navigation bar on siteschemed entry pages

[zvi]

Title:
Display modified navigation bar on siteschemed entry pages

Area:
sitescheme, entries, navigation bar

Summary:
The navbar provides tools not available in the siteschemed entry pages: data on the relationship between the logged in viewer and the account being viewed, as well as style=mine and style=light links. This functionality should be present in siteschemed entry pages as well, at least for people who have chosen to display the navigation bar.

Description:
Siteschemed pages replicate a lot of the function of the navigation bar, but not all of it.

I find it frustrating that on entries where someone has used a journal style I dislike, I have link access to change the style to my own, but on a siteschemed page, which I also dislike for entry reading, I have to manually add ?style=mine to the url. (I know I could use a bookmarklet on my browser where I control the bookmarks, but I not infrequently view DW from other people's computers. One of the chief advantages of the navbar is that it's device independent.)

Also, I read my network pretty often, and I greatly appreciate the function which lets me know what relationship I have to the journal I am viewing. (Even within my circle, I've found it really useful when I'm not sure whether I'm a member of the comm I'm viewing or merely a subscriber.)

The chief difficulty would be that it creates two versions of the sitescheme, with the navbar info and without it. There are very strong reasons for ease of maintenance for keeping to a single sitescheme page structure.

This difficulty could be eliminated by providing the style= links and the relationship info to all users, without regard to whether or not they've enabled the navigation bar. I don't know if that's the best solution, I suspect it has a lot to do with how obtrusively the information is integrated into the siteschemes.

The chief benefit would be that it furthers the site philosophy of giving the logged in user maximum control of the site's presentation to them.

Poll #1116 Display modified navigation bar on siteschemed entry pages

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 28

View Respondents

This suggestion:

View Answers

Should be implemented as-is.
10 (35.7%)

Should be implemented with changes. (please comment)
5 (17.9%)

Shouldn't be implemented.
1 (3.6%)

(I have no opinion)
11 (39.3%)

(Other: please comment)
1 (3.6%)

Comments

[cesy]

As you say, this could be very useful, but could be tricky to do without being obtrusive.

One thing that might make it unnecessary would be a viewing option that's the opposite of the "View comment pages in sitescheme". (I can't remember what the open bugs say for this, but part of me wants two separate options, one for whether you show comment pages in your style or site style, and another for whether you view comment pages in the journal's style, site style, or whatever they chose.)

[zvi]

Except that, if one chooses to, by default, view entries in the journal's style, and the journal owner has chosen to display entries in sitescheme rather than as a styled page, one winds up with the same problem.

[cesy]

I was thinking of my viewing option overriding that - so the three viewing options would be "force sitescheme", "force their style" and "go with whatever they said".

[zvi]

I don't think that's what bug 168 says now. So, your proposal would be a different suggestion from mine, and a modification to 168. But I think combining your options with what is already proposed may well put us into too many options territory. (Frankly, the proposal as it stands seems v. heavy on the options, to me.)

But also, my proposal is something that could be done (I think) relatively simply, while I suspect fey is going to be hacking away at the persistent style thing for some time. And even once the persistent style is live, my proposal would continue to play nicely with it.

[cesy]

Mmm. There's no real neat way to make everyone happy without going into too many options. *goes away to think about it*

Yes. Okay, let's see if anyone can find a way to make it not too obtrusive. On Tropo Purple, you could lengthen the dark bar at the very top of the page and change it into a normal white-on-black navstrip, and I imagine you could do a similar thing for Tropo Red. Where would it go on Celerity?

(Also, of course, turning off the navstrip in your options should turn this site-schemed navstrip off as well.)

[zvi]

I think you're overthinking it. We don't need to put in a new navbar, we just need to get the same info in.

One could add the ?style=mine / ?style=light links to the little menu that starts with Post and ends with Help.

The relationship info is just a line of text. You could put it as a line above the entry, akin to how tags are handled. (ETA: Two lines of text; the add to circle/tracking links are on a separate line in the navbar. I don't see any particular reason not to put them on a single line for the sitescheme display, though.)

AFAICT, all of the other navbar functionality is already available in the sitescheme pages (except Lynx, but that's the whole point of Lynx, and you wouldn't add this additional info to the Lynx scheme.)

[susanreads]

I'd prefer this, rather than a separate navbar.

[snakeling]

+1

[kyrielle]

+1

[turlough]

+1

[medrin]

+1

[existence]

+1

[cheyinka]

In some cases there isn't a styled page to show at all - for example when I brought over my current style, I disabled styled comment pages in the layout layer because I knew I'd never want to see them. I don't even know if the styled comment pages work or not.

[kake]

I'm not a heavy Dreamwidth user, but the one thing that has been annoying/frustrating/confusing me is that sometimes the navbar is there and sometimes it isn't. (As a casual user, the circumstances under which it does/doesn't appear seem utterly random, though I've not really put any effort into figuring it out.) It would be BRILLIANT if it could be made so that the "my style" link is always there, since as you say it's annoying to have to type "?style=mine" manually.

[triadruid]

Until you said this I didn't realize that DW didn't have the same "Always show on my journal/community"/"Always show on any journal or community I view" options that LJ uses. I know they were controversial when implemented there, but surely the second one is worth borrowing?

[zvi]

It does have the option to always show on journals/communities I am viewing, but siteschemed pages do not obey this setting. (They do not obey this setting on LJ either, it's legacy behavior.)

[triadruid]

Ah, they moved the setting to a totally different place here, thanks.

[msilverstar]

It is a bit jarring to see the site scheme without the navbar, which is everywhere else. Maybe the navbar could be treated separately from the theme/scheme?

[zvi]

On the display settings page, what options have you selected for Navigation Strip?

While you are logged in, for all journal styled pages (i.e. not the siteschemed ones) your settings there should dictate when you do or do not see the navbar.

[kake]

They're all ticked. Perhaps what's happening is that it's dumping me into siteschemed pages when I don't expect it to.

[zvi]

Yes! That can happen. If someone does not choose Show entry pages in my journal style rather than the app style on the Customize Journal Style Page, then, if you click on one of their entry pages, it will dump you in sitescheme.

You can minimize this by selecting View comment pages from your Reading Page in your own style on the account settings. The link and reply pages on your reading page will then be appended with ?style=mine. You can get a plain version of the entry link from the title of the entry, in that case.

It still doesn't cover everything, but it cuts down.

[kake]

Ah-ha, thanks! I have that ticked already, so I just need to remember to click on the "link" link instead of the title one.

Perhaps "the app style" should default to the user's chosen style for logged-in users, rather than the site scheme.

[triadruid]

I would much prefer to have the navbar decoupled from site scheme, so that those who use it to navigate/restyle pages can have it, and those who don't can avoid excessive sightings.

[archangelbeth]

Ungodly belatedly; I'm not sure I understand all the coding and distinctions, but it sounds like this could be useful.