Feature Proposal: Clean Up NewUserTemplate

Motivation

New users are irritated by messy default profile pages.

Description and Documentation

Customizing the NewUserTempalte is made unnecessarily hard, i.e. the templatesonly section should go out.

Everything elyse like BeginnersStartHere etc should be displayed in a more friendly way using a VIEW_TEMPLATE showing a nice helper box that can be removed with a "don't ask me again" like feature.

Basically this is what I would do first:

Before

%SPLIT%
   * %KEY%: %VALUE%%SPLIT%

---++ My Links

   * [[%SYSTEMWEB%.BeginnersStartHere][BeginnersStartHere]] - view a short introductory presentation on Foswiki for beginners
   * [[%SYSTEMWEB%.WelcomeGuest][WelcomeGuest]] - starting points on Foswiki
   * [[%SYSTEMWEB%.UsersGuide][UsersGuide]] - complete Foswiki documentation, Quick Start to Reference
   * [[Sandbox.%HOMETOPIC%][%HOMETOPIC%]] - try out Foswiki on your own
   * [[Sandbox.%TOPIC%Sandbox][%TOPIC%Sandbox]] - just for me
   * 
   * 

---++ My Personal Data

Note: if personal data is being stored using a secret database, then it is only visible to the user and to administrators.

| E-mail | %USERIN%NOP%FO{"%TOPIC%" format="$emails"}% |

---++ My Personal Preferences

Uncomment [[%SYSTEMWEB%.PreferenceSettings][preference settings]] to activate them (remove the #-sign). Help and details on preference settings are available in [[%SYSTEMWEB%.%WIKIPREFSTOPIC%][%WIKIPREFSTOPIC%]].

   * Show tool-tip topic info on mouse-over of [[%SYSTEMWEB%.WikiWord][WikiWord]] links, on or off:
      * #Set LINKTOOLTIPINFO = off

---++ Related Topics

   * [[%SYSTEMWEB%.ChangePassword][ChangePassword]] for changing your password
   * [[%SYSTEMWEB%.ChangeEmailAddress][ChangeEmailAddress]] for changing your email address
   * [[%USERSWEB%.%WIKIUSERSTOPIC%][%WIKIUSERSTOPIC%]] has a list of other Foswiki users
   * [[%SYSTEMWEB%.UserDocumentationCategory][UserDocumentationCategory]] is a list of Foswiki user documentation
   * [[%SYSTEMWEB%.UserToolsCategory][UserToolsCategory]] lists all Foswiki user tools

%STARTSECTION{type="templateonly"}%
----
Notes to Wiki Administrator:

Anything inside this "templateonly" section will not be copied to the home topic of the new user. It is a resource for the administrator to tailor the users home topic.

On public Foswiki sites on the Internet user topics are often subject to spam so you may want to limit editing to the user himself. You can do this by moving these two lines to the Personal Preferences section above. Remove the small # in front of the "Set".
   * Write protect your home page: (set it to your [[%SYSTEMWEB%.WikiName][WikiName]])
      * #Set ALLOWTOPICCHANGE = %WIKIUSERNAME%

The default topic text above is for English speaking users. If you have a multilingual wiki community you can replace the "My Links", "Personal Preferences" and "Related Topics" sections above with the localized text below. Text enclosed in %MAKETEXT will be shown in the language selected by the user. Please note that the %MAKETEXT can be quite intimidating to new users. Consider translating above text to your own language if your community uses a non-English language. (Remove all text from =%<nop>STARTSECTION{type="templateonly"}%= to =%<nop>ENDSECTION{type="templateonly"}%= when you are done)

Text for multilingual wiki community, copy from here to %<nop>ENDSECTION{type="templateonly"}%

<!--
   NOTE:

   Text enclosed in '%MAKETEXT' below will be shown in your selected language 
   when you view the topic.

   When you edit this topic for your own purposes, you are advised not to
   touch the MAKETEXT calls. If you want to change the text of one of the
   MAKETEXTed strings, just delete the call completely and replace it with
   your own text e.g. instead of:
      ---++ %MAKETEXT{"Personal Preferences"}%
   write:
      ---++ My Own Setup
-->
---++ %MAKETEXT{"My Links"}%

   * %MAKETEXT{"[_1] - view a short introductory presentation on Foswiki for beginners" args="[[%SYSTEMWEB%.BeginnersStartHere][BeginnersStartHere]]"}%
   * %MAKETEXT{"[_1] - starting points on Foswiki" args="[[%SYSTEMWEB%.WelcomeGuest][WelcomeGuest]]"}%
   * %MAKETEXT{"[_1] - complete Foswiki documentation, Quick Start to Reference" args="[[%SYSTEMWEB%.UsersGuide][UsersGuide]]"}%
   * %MAKETEXT{"[_1] - try out Foswiki on your own" args="[[Sandbox.%HOMETOPIC%][%HOMETOPIC%]]"}%
   * %MAKETEXT{"[_1] - just for me" args="[[Sandbox.%TOPIC%Sandbox][%TOPIC%Sandbox]]"}%
   * 
   * 

---++ %MAKETEXT{"Personal Preferences"}%

%MAKETEXT{"Uncomment preference settings to activate them (remove the #-sign). Help and details on preference settings are available in [_1]." args="[[%SYSTEMWEB%.%WIKIPREFSTOPIC%][%WIKIPREFSTOPIC%]]"}%

   * %MAKETEXT{"Show tool-tip topic info on mouse-over of [_1] links, on or off:" args="[[%SYSTEMWEB%.WikiWord][WikiWord]]"}%
      * #Set LINKTOOLTIPINFO = off

---++ %MAKETEXT{"Related Topics"}%

   * %MAKETEXT{"[_1] for changing your password" args="[[%SYSTEMWEB%.ChangePassword][ChangePassword]]"}%
   * %MAKETEXT{"[_1] for changing your email address" args="[[%SYSTEMWEB%.ChangeEmailAddress][ChangeEmailAddress]]"}%
   * %MAKETEXT{"[_1] has a list of other Foswiki users" args="[[%USERSWEB%.%WIKIUSERSTOPIC%][%WIKIUSERSTOPIC%]]"}%
   * %MAKETEXT{"[_1] is a list of Foswiki user documentation" args="[[%SYSTEMWEB%.UserDocumentationCategory][UserDocumentationCategory]]"}%
   * %MAKETEXT{"[_1] lists all Foswiki user tools" args="[[%SYSTEMWEB%.UserToolsCategory][UserToolsCategory]]"}%

%ENDSECTION{type="templateonly"}%

After:

---+ Homepage of %WIKINAME% 

%SPLIT%
   * %KEY%: %VALUE%%SPLIT%

Examples

Impact

WhatDoesItAffect:

%WHATDOESITAFFECT%

edit

Implementation

-- Contributors: MichaelDaum - 25 Nov 2009

Discussion

AcceptedBy14DayRule

-- MichaelDaum - 07 Dec 2009

What has bugged me is that if you remove KEY and VALUE stubs, you still get the country inserted in the page. Perhaps this can be fixed as well.

-- ArthurClemens - 07 Dec 2009

I has not seen this proposal but it is OK because I support it 100%

So this is an encouragement statement.

If we had had the help texts etc in a VIEW_TEMPLATE in the old project I would not have 3 or 4 different user topic styles now. It is a pain to manually update them all. In fact I gave up on that.

Being able to fix this ONE place will be a welcome thing for the admin. And having a simple minimal user topic is also good.

BUT CAREFUL. People get confused if they see something in view and cannot edit it in edit mode. So we have to design the view template stuff so it is clear to the user that this is something that gets added by the system. Not a long text message but maybe some graphical design like background or frames or similar so the user form at the top + the default text appears as a static thing. It can be very simple means that sends this signal without actually writing any text.

-- KennethLavrsen - 08 Dec 2009

Very true. In wikis where user account info is stored in LDAP and an excerpt (employeeType, phone, mobile, mail, department, location, supervisor, etc) is show via a view template at the top, the first level support regularly has to explain that this is static from the pov of a wiki. Most of these sites have an additional footnote saying something like: "Note this information is stored in an LDAP database. Contact email if you want to update it" kind of thing.

Well, foremost this proposal was raised to get feedback on the default homepages as they come with the standard Foswiki distribution. And as I see we all "loved" the cruft that we shipped before

-- MichaelDaum - 08 Dec 2009

Tasks.Item8745.

-- MichaelDaum - 22 Mar 2010

Reopening this. The Users topic was de-crufted, but the replacement information was never added to a View template, leaving the user with a blank page, and no help or suggestions on what to do next.

-- GeorgeClark - 20 Mar 2011

George, please add yourself as CommittedDeveloper if you like to further improve the user pages. Even better: create a new proposal, please. IMHO, adding back the same info to the view_template doesn't cut it. Instead, user homepages should be a place to interact with the complete wiki in a more social way. This however fits best into a proposal of its own. This one was just for decrufting the mess we got used to over a decade.

-- MichaelDaum - 20 Mar 2011

The way I read the above, to me it approved the decrufting and as you stated "Everything elyse like BeginnersStartHere etc should be displayed in a more friendly way using a VIEW_TEMPLATE showing a nice helper box that can be removed with a "don't ask me again" like feature." I certainly would have raised an objection if the proposal said to delete all the new user help and let somebody else worry about fixing it. So I'm questioning where is the "displayed in a more friendly way" part that you proposed?

-- GeorgeClark - 20 Mar 2011

There is no "user friendly" way to throw the same static cruft back into the face of every user by redundantly copying it into every user's homepage. Most never managed to delete it being left with crap that they don't know how to deal with it long term. Even moving it into a view template doesn't improve that. In fact it makes it even worse as beginners are even less able to get rid of the crap hidden in some view template.

If I stated before that moving this cruft is of any use then I was talking rubbish. This would at least be a total misunderstanding of what people normally use their homepages for.

The users' homepage setup depends very much on the context in which all of the foswiki is used. There is no one solution fits all. For instance on a corporate intranet you'd like to see the name of your department/location/unit, a link to your supervisor, when you entered the company, your telephone number, the internal systems you are responsible for, your recent projects, presentations, talks, reviews, your skills, your planned vacations, customers that you've been dealing with etc, but also which documents have been brought to your attention as part of a (quality management) workflow. Other useful informations are your own recent actions, your team's actions, actions of people you are following.

A community kind of setup does not require most of these parts. So user homepages become completely different beasts.

Again: there's no one-shot fits all. Best solution available for foswiki right now is Arthur's PersonalInfoAddOn. This comes closest to what users need.

As I said the discussion on how to deal with user homepages is an open one ... and clearly exceeding the scope of just cleaning up the new user template.

Again: I am not committed to do any further enhancement in that direction in the context this topic.

Do not shift back the CurrentState of this proposal back to UnderConstruction without you adding yourself to CommittedDeveloper.

-- MichaelDaum - 20 Mar 2011