Need identity plate when viewing Pages

[sean mcclelland]

This is a feature request.

When creating, editing, or more importantly, viewing other's Pages, there is no identity plate anywhere in the window verifying who you are logged in as. As far as I can tell, all other pages in Mahara show your profile block in the top-right corner of the window. However, when you are working on a specific Page, the profile block is not visible, and the only way to see who you are "logged in as" is by hovering over the small logo in the top-left of the screen. I believe the user's name should not be hidden.

Reason: We have faculty who work regularly with students, reviewing and commenting on their completed Pages. One faculty in particular had been helping a student in her office earlier in the day, and had apparently logged in as the student, or allowed the student to log in on her computer. The next day, she re-opened her browser, and began reviewing other students Pages, leaving comments on their page. She later discovered that she was STILL logged in as the student (from the previous day), and was leaving comments as the student, not as herself!

I suspect the faculty member didn't log the student off properly the day before, or there was a cache problem with her browser. If there was an indication in the window of who she was logged in as, this problem could have been avoided.

(Our students and faculty often share links to their Mahara Pages from within our LMS (Moodle), so they may not be logging in directly to Mahara, adding to potential for confusion on this issue.)

Thank you!

[François Marier (fmarier)]

Here's a example of one way we could do this (from libravatar.org).

[François Marier (fmarier)]

https://reviews.mahara.org/#change,903

[François Marier (fmarier)]

There is disagreement in the above review as to what this should look like and the review is currently stalled.

To summarize:

1- some have suggested showing a user's display_name instead of their username and there is no real opposition to this
2- we are split as to whether or not the display_name should be clickable and take users to their profile view (i.e. link v. text-only)

[Kristina Hoeppner (kris-hoeppner)]

Hello Sean,

As you reported this wishlist item, what is your opinion? What would your users want? The question is whether the name should be clickable and lead to the user's profile page or whether the name should only be displayed.

If you want to read the comments on the review, you can find them at https://reviews.mahara.org/#patch,sidebyside,903,1,htdocs/theme/raw/templates/header/topright.tpl

It's the three comments on the right-hand side next to the line number 4 below the green line. Don't worry, you don't have to decipher any code. ;-) Just the comments by Francois, Melissa and me.

Cheers
Kristina

[sean mcclelland (sean-mcclelland)]

Hello, thank you for the response! (I wasn't sure if you wanted me to reply here or on the code change page?)

I've thought about it, and don't have a strong feeling either way, to be honest. I think the viewer just needs an easy way to back out of that Page and return to their Dashboard or anywhere in which the main tabbed navigation bar is visible (which, I believe they can already do by clicking the "back" button in the top-right).

The import points, in my mind, are that the user should easily be able to identify (1) who created/owns the Page they're viewing, and (2) how they are currently logged in (as themselves), or as someone else if they're an administrator.

Does this help/make sense?

Thank you!

- Sean

[Kristina Hoeppner (kris-hoeppner)]

Hi Sean,

Thanks. A comment here is fine. I added it to the review. So it's now pretty much up to us to decide whether to link or not link then, I guess. :-) Unless there are other strong opinions.

Cheers
Kristina

[Mahara Bot (dev-mahara)]

Reviewed: https://reviews.mahara.org/903
Committed: http://gitorious.org/mahara/mahara/commit/844ac9e7266030298f18f0a7a76cc72d74d33909
Submitter: Francois Marier (<email address hidden>)
Branch: master

commit 844ac9e7266030298f18f0a7a76cc72d74d33909
Author: Melissa Draper <email address hidden>
Date: Wed Nov 30 18:49:07 2011 +1300

    Add users display name to topright tpl (bug #897439)

    This will avoid shared computer mishaps where someone begins
    commenting and creating stuff under another persons account
    accidentally because there was no indication of the login on
    no-sidebar pages.

    Change-Id: I7e702a5fe1680189369823e6f507dcc2c54522ba
    Signed-off-by: Melissa Draper <email address hidden>

[Kristina Hoeppner (kris-hoeppner)]

Why is it styled to look like normal text instead of like a link and thus be an indicator that it is clickable?

[sean mcclelland (sean-mcclelland)]

Hello again! We've installed this patch on our staging server and I tested it out. Unfortunately, I don't think the change addressed the issue. Here is what I found, please correct me if I'm wrong.

This was true before the fix, and is still true:
The logged in user's Profile Site Block is visible at the top of the right-hand column, clearly indicating who is logged in and provides access to their Profile. This is true for all areas of their Portfolio EXCEPT when they were viewing or editing a "Page." When viewing (their Page own or another user's Page), or editing their own Page, the Profile Site Block is not visible. The only way to know how you are logged in, is to hover-over the Portfolio link in the top-left of the page to reveal a breadcrumb link trail, which includes the logged in user's name.

After the fix:
The fix added the logged in user's name to the same pages that already display the Profile Site Block visible. This seems to just add a redundant element to those pages. I do not see such an identity plate when viewing or editing a "Page" in the Portfolio, which is where I believe it is needed. I guess, a simple (though perhaps non-elegant) solution is to make that breadcrumb trail un-hidden?

I propose that we un-committ this fix, and revisit it. I am happy to provide more ideas/help from the user's perspective!

PS: I also noticed that the very helpful "Created By ____" title is omitted from the top of the window when viewing a Collection, whereas is it visible when viewing individual Pages. Should I create a separate feature request for this?

[Kristina Hoeppner (kris-hoeppner)]

Hello Sean,

When I viewed an earlier iterration I think the name was displayed on the pages that didn't have the profile block. So maybe it was a slight miscommunication as another developer had taken over.

There is already a bug for the missing author information for collections: https://bugs.launchpad.net/mahara/+bug/897057 and it's being worked on.

[Richard Mansfield (richard-mansfield)]

Hi Sean, the fix we committed only works for sites with "small page headers" turned off (the default). I'm guessing you have that option turned on for your site. We'll need to come up with some other solution for small page headers, perhaps removing the user's name from that hover menu and moving it to the right hand side.

[Kristina Hoeppner (kris-hoeppner)]

Or take off the hover effect from the navigation because then the username is displayed.

[sean mcclelland (sean-mcclelland)]

Yes, we did have the "small page headers" option turned on. Is it "on" by default? (I wasn't around when Mahara was first installed at my University, so I'm not 100% sure what the default settings are.)

And, am I correct in assuming that this feature implemented to simplify the window when viewing/editing Pages (by hiding the navigation tabs)?

I'm still wrapping my head around the different factors involved, but it seems like - if small Page headers are left on - that Kristina's suggestion of taking off the hover effect would work, so you can see the name plate of the logged in user in those cases. Maybe this could be another option check-box, like small Page headers?

Thanks again.