portablemind/compass_agile_enterprise — Issue #65: Interaction between global and website-attached articles is non-intuitive
Author: rkwestel
Created: 2012-03-08 17:18:49+00:00
State: open
Labels: Feature, Knitkit-CMS

I experienced significant confusion between the two different views of articles, and after discussing it with Russell to understand the interaction better, I still find it not ideal, even if we document the hell out of it. So, feel free to set me straight if I'm wrong on this, but here's what I see along with suggested solutions.

Problem 1: If I open an article from the Websites tab and then switch to the global Articles tab and select that same article, it doesn't re-draw the version list at the bottom of the center pane, so it still shows the publish option even though I now think I'm in the global view. It makes it look like I can publish from the global view, when in fact I'm only publishing for the site that was selected, only now I can no longer tell which site that was if I have more than one.

The same is true in reverse. If I started from the Articles tab and switch to the Websites tab, I first have to close the article and then re-open it from the website in order to make the publish button show up.

Suggested solution 1: Redraw the open tab to reflect the current context whenever the user hits the HTML button for that article.

Problem 2: If I edit and save an article via the Articles tab and then switch to the Websites tab to publish the changes for that site, I don't actually see the changes reflected in the HTML view because I'm seeing the previously cached view for that site. If I want to see my changes before publishing, I have to hit the refresh button at the bottom of the left pane.

Suggested solution 2: Force a refresh of the article when the user hits the HTML button.