Information Management Discussion

This page is for the purpose of discussing ways to improve information management and user-interface of OWW.
To post comments, please type *'''~~~~''': followed by your comment to get example below.
▪ Jennyn 16:16, 25 February 2006 (EST): Hello World.
▪ Jennyn 16:18, 25 February 2006 (EST): Hi back!

Possible New Look

Right is a possible "new look" for the main page. Please post your comments/suggestions.

• Jennyn 16:23, 25 February 2006 (EST): I made this to compliment Jen's new emblem.
• Johncumbers 19:42, 25 February 2006 (EST): Hi Jenny, it looks great with the new logo. I just finished the news section Novel_uses_of_OpenWetWare I think that the news panel could move from the bottom to one of the panes in the main page and could include thumbnails as links to the stories, what do you think? At the moment it is hidden at the bottom and I often forget to look at it. It could still include links to the news, e.g
  2/24/06: ABC lab joins OWW
  2/22/06: ChIPOnChip Protocol added
  But also have links to maybe two photos in it, I think it would be nice to have some photos on the front page. I'd show you what I mean, but I have not had much experience of laying out columns and photos so would prefer to leave it to somebody who has..
  cheers, John
• Jennyn 20:06, 25 February 2006 (EST): Good point. I will play around with this template and see how I can incorporate News on this so that it stands out. I'll look into adding images.
• Jennyn 04:38, 26 February 2006 (EST): I went ahead and changed it. If anyone has any objections, feel free to revert back to old or edit as necessary. I am working on getting the thumbnail news to a panel spanning the top.
• RS 12:30, 26 February 2006 (EST): I love the new look! Great job Jenny! We should extend it to the Protocols and Materials pages. And probably other common pages as well under the Shared Resources section. Can we make it a template very easily? And then have a placehold for inserting the text graphic at the top of the page and column contents and news? I am not sure whether the advantages of being able to make general layout changes in one spot outweigh the lack of customization of each page. I could imagine that new protocol announcements and requests for protocols would go in the news section of the Protocols page.
• Jennyn 12:37, 26 February 2006 (EST): The template is definitely applicable to other pages. I am currently collaborating with George Ahunov to see what types of software he can develop so that we can deal with less code with managing our information. Will work on Protocols and Materials.
• Jasonk 14:38, 26 February 2006 (EST): I didn't see this discussion page before, hence my comments over here. if people are in favor of the color scheme then feel free to flip it back. Thought it might be worth waiting until the logo colors got finalized though.
• Smeister 14:47, 26 February 2006 (EST) Hmm - For what it's worth: I kind of liked the green - it was friendlier and more inviting.
• Jennyn: We can just wait until the logo colors are finalized, and I can adapt the pages accordingly. The logo should be in its final stages now since we are all starting to agree on one emblem design. In the meantime, I will adjust the Protocols and Materials to the column scheme and keep the gray/blue scheme for now.
• RS 15:22, 26 February 2006 (EST): I wonder if on the protocols page, the announcements section should be a strip across the top or bottom instead of a column? For some reason, it seems more natural to me. Then the four columns could be In vivo, In vitro, In silico and Other. We could even make Protocols in Progress a separate category to continue using the split columns.
• RS 15:22, 26 February 2006 (EST): As for the color scheme, I think it should be whatever we agree on for the final logo.
• Jennyn 15:29, 26 February 2006 (EST): Good point on the Announcements! Will do that.

Mini logo/support OWW graphic

• Jasonk 15:23, 26 February 2006 (EST): Random thought - it might be cool to have a little box that says, 'Join OWW' or something with a graphic. Sort of like the "I support PLoS" box on this page. Although, I would make it smaller, something that could fit on the lab's homepages. That way if they are dewikified, outside visitors would still realize the lab is part of OpenWetWare (a concern brought up by Smeister in the OpenWetWare:Ideas discussion area.) Might make sense to do this when logo is finished, but wanted to get the idea down.
• RS 15:56, 26 February 2006 (EST): Great idea! It would be awesome if people could download it and put it in their presentations and/or posters and on their static websites (since many people have separate wiki sites and static sites). And of course, we need to get T-shirts!
• Jennyn 16:48, 26 February 2006 (EST): Jason, that sounds like a really good idea --good marketing mechanism! I will look into it once we get a logo. Definitely like the T-shirt idea!

Calendar events

• RS 14:26, 27 February 2006 (EST): I spontaneously decided to make a calendar event template in order to make adding events to the Calendar easier and improve standardization in event descriptions. Feel free to edit/revise it if you don't like it. If you do like, try to port some of the events on the Calendar over to the new format. Some questions I have are (1) Does it take up too many lines? (2) Is it pretty obvious at which institution an event is taking place (by the host line)?