Re: New version of Quality Tips for Webmaster

On Fri, Apr 19, 2002, Terje Bless wrote:
> Olivier Thereaux <ot@w3.org> wrote:
> 
> >since it's not (yet) in context, it's disturbing that the new (well,
> >future) version of the validator shows the tip exactly where the
> >validation result used to be.
> 
> "disturbing"? That word carries rather strong connotations to me and seems
> somewhat odd in the context.

Ah, the joy of reporting someone else's feedback!

That remark was made about the service on :8001, and, indeed, on that
version the location is a tad disturbing for people used to the
production version of the validator.
 
> The current code in CVS attempts to put the tip in a floating DIV on the
> right side of the Validation Results (analogous to the QA floating
> "Navbar"). 

That would indeed not be "disturbing". I have not seen the actual result,
but am wondering, is it taking a lot of real estate in the page? And,
given the number of current browsers which are far from friendly with
CSS positionning, and even less with float, I'd be extremely cautious
with it.

Another idea : put the "tip of the day box", with a distinct color (but
not too violent, e.g some gentle green) above the form. 

I'm certain some people would recommend to "never put anything before
the form", but remember most of "tip of the day" boxes pop up before you
can actually use the sofware. I'm not sure if it's good or bad, your
choice.
 
> >It would certainly be nice if there was at least a "longer-term goal" to
> >make this tip-of-the-day chosen because of errors in the document that
> >is being checked.

> Yes, this would be nice, but at the moment I don't think this is feasible
> to implement.

Indeed. I said "long term goal", and I believe that improving in-context help
(improving error messages, giving probable fixes, giving a related
"tip", etc) is a worthy one.

Thanks,
-- 
Olivier

Received on Thursday, 18 April 2002 20:21:41 UTC