Text Controls and User Experience

It will be nice if the following functionality is available in the main text not just through the side bar.

In translations:

  1. Language drop down
  2. Author selection

In Pali:

  1. Script selection
  2. Dictionary selection

This can perhaps be a tiny hovering control box on the side?

In small text the sub section of the Suttas before the start with a link to get back to the beginning and end of the sections.

E.g.

Sec1 | Sec 2 | Sec 3

This is a non-starter, sorry. White space is sacred. Functionality goes in the sidebar. If anyone wants to do it different, fork SC and roll your own.

By this you mean something like a breadcrumbs menu, like, say, that used in Access to Insight? We have given some thought to this, and would like to implement something. Maybe next year we will find the time for this.

In which case can you reduce or optimise the clicks and mouse movements to get to the particular functionality and perhaps name and organise them to be more self evident what the functionality is.

At least the control tab can be called Script & Dictionary Settings when on a Pali Sutta and on translation Paragraph and Page Cross Referencing.

Also maybe evaluating and justifying site design decision and functionality against UX (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_experience_design) matrix with some form of input from a UX testing groups who are not part of the sites design and development team?

By popular demand (meaning I want it, and someone else wants it) I have implemented the ability to “pin” the sidebar making it a permanent fixture while pinned. This is an opt-in feature, if someone wants it they can check the tickbox under controls and if they want to return to default behavior they can simply uncheck the box. It works great on wide screens where there is already plenty of whitespace.

Pinning does 3 things:

  • causes the sidebar to be always extended and undismissable
  • disables darkness so the text can be interacted with while the sidebar is extended
  • causes the sidebar to shunt the text to the right instead of overlaying it

Please note: A while back I implemented code so google analytics can track how users use the sidebar features. It makes it somewhat possible to observe how people interact with the sidebar and controls.

1 Like

terrific

@blake, if we’re already feasting maybe you could create a toggable pinned main navigation panel as well? it’s pretty annoying every time having to scroll the page back up a notch to make it reappear

I hate it. But alas, I shall have to admit that it’s well thought out and implemented. So if it must be, I’ll practice letting go.

A couple of details:

  • Some padding would be nice.
  • It would also be nice to have a bit of an animation/transition between states, to guide the eye as to exactly what’s happening. Fade the shadow, and animate the text right-shift, I guess.