It turns out that I need sometimes to quickly capture some information for my wiki to return to it later. Usually I create a quick blog post with text / audio / pictures and then copy or link to a relevant page(s).
And it become a real pain when I need to do it on the go or without connection. Xwiki UI not particularly friendly (though quite convenient) especially on phone.
What would it take to allow posting via email? So you could compose an email from your user address to specific address that is scanned by Xwiki. And it would be parsed to a new blog post with title, text, attachments, tags from the email. What are reasonable ways to do it: extension, app, or does fit as a Xwiki feature?
It sounds like the easiest way to facilitate information capturing in Xwiki. Android app seems to be dead, and Progressive web-app will impact most of code base.
Hi, we did some POC of sending content by email a very long time ago and it wasn’t that great (you need to configure your wiki to POP/IMPA4 some mail inbox, you have to insert the received content at the end, etc).
Honestly, if you have connection on your phone, I think it works much better to directly add the content. You said:
Could you elaborate a bit more?
If it were more “friendly”, would that replace the need to send by mail?
I’m sorry I make so many reference to Wordpress, it has own flaws. But once more example is their mobile app. (Which connects to self-hosted servers only through their proprietary system, meh.)
It’s a pleasure to put in it everything you got on a moment: some thoughts, file, photos, tags. It’s immediately saved locally (and even could be edited!) to be posted when you get a connection.
Main advantages are 1) in a hurry you don’t depend on loading of interface at all - just concentrate on the content, 2) you’re sure that all your stuff is properly saved and you just need to control it was uploaded to the server, 3) click share with in context menu and start the post you need.
Yes, it’s also well suited for phone screens: no small elements and crazy scrolling around for basic actions. But it’s only a part of the problem. Main pains are these three points: 1) capturing information without interruptions of interaction for loading, 2) local retention to be sure that nothing will be lost, 3) basic system integration.
Could you elaborate a bit more?
I’m not a big UX-expert. I would note two things from my perspective.
Overall sections lay-out on editing lacks of visual clearness. It’s more like a mixed salad, and I do some cognitive exercise each time: recognize what would this section be on desktop and where it’s belong, decide does it need your attention, find elements that you would use in desktop workflow.
Somehow it doesn’t give an impression of a finished system to use. Without prior experience with desktop layout I think I would hesitate to use it.
Editor is narrow and post looks like a field in a number of different page attributes. It would a bless if design would concentrate around the information I put there; both in terms of screen place and tools. And this is a huge struggle. I think story with Gutenberg editor isn’t complete yet, to finish with WP references.
P.s. Looks like the best solution I see for now is to draft my things in email, and then manually transfer to Xwiki.
Thanks for the feedback @searoso. I’d like that we do something about your feedback. Do you think you could create small and focused jira issues about actionable suggestions you have to improve our mobile experience?
For ex you say:
Would be great if you could create a jira issue with a clear suggestion to improve it (if you have an idea). If not, then we can continue to discuss it here but without anyone having a proposal, it’ll remain just ideas.
Same here. If you could do a quick mockup or show a screenshot of what could be done and create a jira issue for it, that would be great.
Note that we had a semi-native app in the past but it’s a pain to maintain and it’s not been maintained for a long time no (I don’t even know if it works, probably not: https://extensions.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Extension/XWikiMobile). The only thing we support is the responsive xwiki skin (flamingo).