Ticket #9279 (closed PLIP: wontfix)

Opened 7 years ago

Last modified 7 years ago

Making document actions optional

Reported by: laurenskling Owned by:
Priority: minor Milestone: 4.0
Component: Unknown Version:
Keywords: document actions Cc: plip-advisories@…

Description

Motivation.

The documents actions (send this page, print this page) can be very useful, but at this moment it is only possible to switch it on or off globally. There are lots of situation where you only want them on a couple of pages, for example on articles about events or manuals.

Proposal.

  • Let webmasters decide on every page whether to show the Document Action or not.
  • The default can be set in the Plone Control Panel.
  • Add a simple checkbox in the 'settings' tab of the metadata to switch it on or off.

Implementation.

add a checkbox to the 'settings' tab stating “show document action”, by default set as set in the control panel.

Risks.

none.

Attachments

documentactions.jpg Download (91.2 KB) - added by laurenskling 7 years ago.
the "show document actions" checkbox.

Change History

comment:1 Changed 7 years ago by MatthewWilkes

I don't think there's enough detail here on the implementation. How and where will you store the preferences, and how will you expose them in the UI? Are we talking on the actions-tools level or the viewlet level? Would it be possible to hide some but not all?

Thanks

Matt

comment:2 Changed 7 years ago by laurenskling

  • Keywords document actions added

Hey Matt,

The different actions of the document actions can be chosen in the ZMI. First, switch it on or off globally in @@manage-viewlets. Then, when switched on, we can put a checkbox in the 'settings' tab of each item, which gives a true or false to the viewlet.

I would not hide some. There are use cases where you want the viewlet hidden on just a few (navigation) pages, but I don't think anyone is waiting for choosing the six actions on every item.

thanks for your reply.

Laurens

Changed 7 years ago by laurenskling

the "show document actions" checkbox.

comment:3 Changed 7 years ago by MatthewWilkes

Laurens,

Are you proposing changing the backing class of the viewlet to look up the display on the context, falling back to the site? This really isn't clear at the moment.

Matt

comment:4 Changed 7 years ago by hannosch

I'd just remove those actions from default Plone Core.

Printing pages is an action found in all browsers and users are used to using this functionality by now, since not all websites have a dedicated "print me" action in the site.

The mail this page action is a real spam problem and has little value. Since most websites don't have a dedicated "sent this" action, users are accustomed to copying the URL from the location bar of the browser and sending it via their own mail program or using the mail action of the browser to sent a mail. The number of cases where users don't have access to a (web-) mail client when browsing websites is not a concern anymore today.

Another action that was in this spot is the RSS action, which is nowadays integrated into the location bar of all major browsers as well and doesn't need to be part of the website anymore.

comment:5 Changed 7 years ago by alecm

I'm with Hanno here, none of those actions need to be installed by default, they are useless. The document actions functionality is very limited, and is useful for things like the ExternalEditor link and other product specific actions, but the current default actions are all essentially worthless. Hanno, are you going to PLIP this?

comment:6 Changed 7 years ago by pupq

1) Those "useless" options are LOVED by your users. Many, many public sites have "print this page" link because their normal print-the-regular-page AREN'T very good. So people expect print-this-page and widely use it. I haven't tested this in usability since just prior to the Italy conference, but when asked to "print a page", most users looked for the print-this-page link before just hitting print.

2) Same with email. It's a loved and used feature. Perhaps just make it easier to turn off?

comment:7 Changed 7 years ago by igbun

I think this is not a very common use case. If in some setup you want to show document actions only in certain situations, you can use a condition expression. A more user-friendly solution would be better fit as an add-on.

About the suggestion to remove document actions, thinking as a user, I agree with Hanno and Alec. But common users don't think the same.

My experience with users is also that document actions like "send this page to a friend" and "print this page" are a recurring requirement, and actually used. In regard to RSS, although most browsers include it at the location bar, some users are simply not aware of it and look for orange RSS icons at the page :)

Most major contentish websites provide these actions and even more. They will eventually disappear I guess, but for now they're still very much alive. So, if we remove them, it should be very easy to enable them, out-of-the-box.

comment:8 Changed 7 years ago by pupq

Also: not all browsers seem to show RSS feed icons, and many users don't seem to notice those icons.

In short: I think, from integrators perspective, if we take these away by default, people won't realize they're available. And they're common, appreciated, and widely-used. They're easy to hide already, via portal_actions, for those sites that don't want them.

comment:9 Changed 7 years ago by regebro

I don't see the usecase. Either you wnat to have a print and send buttons for you documents, or you don't. I can't see why you would want to turn it off for certain documents.

comment:10 Changed 7 years ago by laurenskling

For example, navigational pages, where you create a couple of links, these pages have no need to be sent or printed.

comment:11 Changed 7 years ago by erikrose

Clearing Owner field of 4.0 PLIPs so we can use it to mean "implementor". (Many of these owners were automatically assigned from choosing a Component that had a default owner.)

comment:12 Changed 7 years ago by smcmahon

  • Cc plip-advisories@… added

comment:13 Changed 7 years ago by MatthewWilkes

There is no consensus on how this should work and the PLIP is insufficiently detailed for me to recommend it.

FWT Vote: -1

comment:14 Changed 7 years ago by rossp

FWT vote -1. Lack of consensus.

comment:15 Changed 7 years ago by davisagli

FWT vote: -1. I don't think this is a common enough use case to be included in the core. It could easily be implemented as an add-on product providing a schema-extender for setting this flag on a per-item basis, plus an override of the document actions viewlet that checks that setting.

comment:16 Changed 7 years ago by raphael

FWT vote: -1

I fail to see a need to change anything here in core

comment:17 Changed 7 years ago by calvinhp

FWT Vote: -1 I agree with Joel's arguments that our users actually love these features and we have seen similar evidence in our implementations.

comment:18 Changed 7 years ago by esteele

  • Status changed from new to closed
  • Resolution set to wontfix

Rejected for Plone 4.0 by FWT vote.

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