dw_docs | FIRST DRAFT OF DREAMWIDTH LEXICON

This exists because I am an enormous dork. An enormous *picky* dork. And I was typing along and got to the phrase: "Interactions Menu" and realized that if *I* didn't know what it was (I had to go ask) people suddenly showing up on the site with gun and camera in a week or so wouldn't have any bigger clue. So I figured maybe we could do a little lexicon (because Momma

rho hates the word "dictionary") of the really confusing stuff. At the bottom, there's a question that doesn't really fit into the dictionary format and may need to become a FAQ, but it showed up in my "confusing terms" solicitation.

DREAMWIDTH LEXICON

Site-scheme pages: These are any pages on the site that you can't change the look of (aside from choosing a "Site Scheme" from the "Display" tab on the "My Account Settings" page). All of the Site scheme pages except "Lynx" display the Dreamwidth logo.

Interactions Menu: The strip on the left of the Profile Page with the icons for options like Modify, Access, Send Message, Track.

Archive: This displays past entries of a journal or community by year or by month.

Navigation Strip: This strip displays at the top of your journal or community page and can also display at the top of your Reading Page and the top of other journals and communities in your Circle if you make that selection from the "My Account Settings" page. This strip always provides hotlinks for "Home" "Post" "Reading Page" and "Inbox" — the other hotlinks it displays at the top center of the strip will change depending on what page of the site you are viewing. At the top right of the strip there is a box into which you can type a search term, a pulldown menu that allows you to choose "Interest", "Region", "Site & User", "FAQ", "Email", or "IM Info" as your search area. Beside the pulldown menu there's a button marked "Go".

RTE: This stands for "Rich Text Editor" which is something that lets you add formatting and pictures to text when you post an entry without knowing or using HTML tags. The RTE can only be used when posting an entry, not making a comment. The RTE can tend to be a little temperamental.

HTML editor: This is sometimes also called Plain Text, where you add <angle brackets> around your HTML tags (manually) when you post either an entry or a comment to change the look of your text.

Subscribe: Journals that you Subscribe to or that Subscribe to you are the journals of people who can read your Public/Unlocked/Open entries, and you can read theirs. Once you Subscribe to a Journal or a Community, it appears on your Reading List.

Access/Give Access/Have Access: When you give someone Access to your Journal, they can read your Private/Locked/Protected entries. They can't read entries you have further protected by using an Access Filter, if they are not on that Filter. You are not automatically able to read their Private/Locked/Protected entries in return: they must choose to give you Access to their Journal.

Reading Page: Your reading page is where you read the latest entries of your Circle. Your "Circle" is all the people, communities, and feeds with whom and with which you have a relationship of any kind.

OpenID: OpenID is a way for you to take the account you've created from another site that supports OpenID and use it to log in to Dreamwidth Studios with an OpenID account. There's more information on creating and using OpenID accounts on Dreamwidth in FAQ #62

HOW DO I...?

Say "may I subscribe to AND get access from you?" at the same time.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The Interactions Menu and Navstrip are defined spatially. :(

There are some other things on DW that I don't know the name for but which I feel it would be helpful to have a name.

The "main menu" on the site scheme pages: Create/Organize/Read/Explore. I have been calling it the CORE menu but I know that's unofficial, is there an official term?

Also, the search bar which appears both in the navstrip and on site scheme pages, what is that called?

Also, also, the abbreviated menu which is also available on Site Scheme pages, the one which includes: Post/Reading Page/Inbox/Account Settings/Invite Someone/Help and maybe your icon and the logout button (not sure if that's actually part of the same block or if it's just put next to each other in Tropospherical.)

The Interactions Menu and Navstrip are defined spatially. :(

Yes they are. I honestly could not think of another way to define their location, since they aren't labeled and can both change color. In the case of the Navigation Strip, it does extend across the entire top of the page. I've watched a couple of video demos of screen-readers being used to navigate a site, so in your opinion, would somebody using a screen-reader and using the command "top" to reach the navigation strip be able to find what they needed from there? Or do I need to figure out a better way of defining its location on the page (help?)

With the Interactions Menu, I'm kind of at a loss about how to define where it is on the screen so that somebody who can't see it can find it, especially since it isn't labeled. I would welcome input from anyone more familiar with writing this sort of documentation.

Help?

There are some other things on DW that I don't know the name for but which I feel it would be helpful to have a name.

Me too!

The "main menu" on the site scheme pages: Create/Organize/Read/Explore. I have been calling it the CORE menu but I know that's unofficial, is there an official term?

I have never seen an official term used for it anywhere. I like this term. If it's adopted, I will add it to the Lexicon.

Also, the search bar which appears both in the navstrip and on site scheme pages, what is that called?

Do you mean the little combination of box, button, and pulldown menu? I have never seen a specific name for that either (what it *does* is search the Directory though, so maybe it's the Directory Search menu?)

Also, also, the abbreviated menu which is also available on Site Scheme pages, the one which includes: Post/Reading Page/Inbox/Account Settings/Invite Someone/Help and maybe your icon and the logout button (not sure if that's actually part of the same block or if it's just put next to each other in Tropospherical.)

Tropospherical Red and Tropospherical Purple are identical except for color, the abbreviated menu appears in the same grouping in Celerity (though it moves to the other side of the page), and it is not visible at all in Lynx. I do not know what this menu is called, aside from "the navigation menu on the site-schemed pages if you aren't using Lynx", but so far the FAQs haven't referenced the menus separately from the site-schemed pages.

I never did watch the vids for using a screen reader because it kept crashing my browser.

The thing is, I don't think we should be thinking in terms of "Look here" for explaining what things are. So, my very first, it's the middle of the night stab at navbar would be:

A javascript panel which the logged-in user can choose to display on styled pages, which contains useful links and displays the relationship of the logged-in user to the account which is currently displayed.

For interactions menu: A menu of four links for modifying the relationship of the logged-in user to the account whose profile the logged-in user is at. This is part of the first section of the profile page.

Those are rough and not right, but you see what I mean about defining what they are instead of where they are?

Yes! That's incredibly helpful! Thank you!

Unless there's an active attempt to educate people about web coding, I'd drop the word "javascript" from the navbar description.

I had no idea it was a javascript thing. I have no idea what other javascript things might exist. I don't mind learning this--it goes in the pile of "useless code trivia" that's accumulating in the corner of my brain, waiting to reach critical mass, after which point it will explode and I will have absorbed 1337 code-master h4x0r skills through osmosis. But some people are turned off by anything code-ish, and their brains shut down with a note of "too technical; whatever follows this, I obviously won't understand it."

If there's an intention of feeding people small bits of code-ish terminology in the hopes of making code-ish explanations less scary, it's a good thing. If the intention is closer to "the average non-geek user doesn't need to know a damn thing about code, evar," it shouldn't be in the definition.

IMHO, YMMV, and all that. This is an opinion, not a manifesto.

The reason I specifically included the fact that it's javascript is that for someone who is surfing with javascript turned off, the navigation strip will not appear.

Hmm. Balancing "useful bit of technical info for those who understand it" with "scary bit of technese to those who don't." I suppose you're right; the people who turn off javascript need to know that it's j'script more than people whose brains skip past anything with a code-ish reference need to have their brainfrag catered to.

I completely missed that saying "this is javascript" could be useful in more than an abstract sense.

(deleted comment)

(Reply to

greg, which I am noting here because I do not seem to be able to get my replies in the right place EVAH): I agree that our documents should not dis-privilege users who navigate the site visually, since the entire operating ethos of Dreamwidth is of inclusiveness. To that end, I think the best course of action may be to begin each definition with

zvi's "what" methodology and follow it with a "where" definition. The reason for placing the definitions in this order is because both locational definitions can be useful to users whose form of site navigation is primarily visual, and also because those users are frequently able to read over documentation at a faster rate than those using special equipment to interact with the site.

before i crashed hard earlier i had a go at it and came up with this and saved this to my notepad:
"The Interactions Menu is a group of controls for organizing your interactions with other Dreamwidth users: Subscription (Subscribe, Modify Subscription), Access (Grant Access, Modify Access), Send Message, and Track. The Interactions Menu is displayed on Profile pages for personal, community, and feed accounts. Depending on your layout, the Interactions Menu may be displayed near the user icon on other pages as small icons (list icons)."

would something like that work?

Yes, I totally think it would! Thanks! *snerches*

FIRST DRAFT OF DREAMWIDTH LEXICON

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