App Classification and Structure - Guidance Sought

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App Classification and Structure - Guidance Sought

GregChapman
Hi Nabble,

I'm beginning to develop a Beginners Guide at my GregHelp site. The plan is to create three main topics describing:
• The way content is presented in the various Apps
• How access can be controlled
• Strategies for arranging content
However, I have run into trouble in understanding the concepts behind some of the design and am not sure whether to treat them as "features" or "bugs". Perhaps you can help, so I can phrase my help pages appropriately - or maybe change some of Nabble's behaviour.

Currently, I am considering three options found under "Options > Structure" and how they vary under different apps:

Forum
    Create new sub-forum - Creates Forum
    Manage pinned topics
    Manage sub-forums

Mixed
    Create new sub-forum - Creates Forum
    Manage pinned topics
    Manage subcategories

Category
    Create new sub-forum - Creates Forum
    Manage subcategories

Board
    Create new subcategory - Creates Category
    Manage subcategories

Gallery
    Create new subcategory - Creates Gallery
    Manage pinned topics
    Manage subcategories

Blog
    Create new subcategory - Creates Blog
    Manage pinned topics
    Manage subcategories

News
    Create new subcategory - Creates News
    Manage pinned topics
    Manage subcategories

In my thinking "Forum" and "Mixed" are both"loosely structured" apps, designed to have a mix of both sub-folders and topics within them. "Category" and "Board" are both "strongly structured" apps, intended to contain only sub-folders (hence no ability to "Manage pinned topics"). The remainder, the "sidebar apps", appear designed to share information from individuals and organisations, rather than be a vehicle for general discussion.

The issues:
There appears to be an inconsistency about how the term "subcategory" is used. This particularly applies to the Mixed app where it is a Forum that is created under it rather than a Mixed app.

I have no understanding of why the Board app should generate a new Category app, but a Category app generate a forum. These are both "strongly structured" apps. I would expect that either both would be expected to have  further sub-folders and each would generate a further app of their own kind or that it would be expected that there would be no further classification of topics and both would generate a forum.

Possibly the "Mixed" app should be considered in the strongly structured group when creating a sub-folder and it should generate a further Mixed app.

I would prefer the "Gallery" app to be renamed "Thumbnails", for the simple reason that that is how any content is presented and it then suggests no particular use.

As it stands, the name "Gallery" strikes me as misleading as, while it is possible to generate something that is gallery-like, the fact that further images cannot be preloaded in the background while viewing any image means that any "gallery" underneath it is always going to be slow to load and cumbersome to use without the "Previous/Next Topic" add-on which itself needs further customisation to refer to images. Not only that, as the individual images can only be presented within a standard forum topic, you are left with references to "Reply" and there is no capacity, without significant NAML coding, to change that to "Comment" as one would expect with images in any other gallery. Further, the name "Gallery" encourages administrators building general discussion groups to attempt to use it, when it is an app in the group designed for single users who invite comments on their posts.
Volunteer Helper - but recommending that users move off the platform!
Once the admin for GregHelp now deleted.
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Re: App Classification and Structure - Guidance Sought

Franklin <Nabble>
Administrator
Hugo designed many of these, and I don't really understand all the design decisions.  I think Nabble was somewhat over-engineered and I would keep things simpler next time.  I have talked about Blasma but haven't had the time to really work on it.  I have started working on it again and now I hope to finish it.  I will post about it to this forum when I am ready for feedback.  I hope you will be able to give suggestions for Blasma so that we can avoid this kind of confusion there.
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Re: App Classification and Structure - Guidance Sought

Gary Lewis
Franklin - As I'm sure you know, Greg would be a good resource to bounce your plans off of, test, etc.  He's been creating some excellent documentation about how Nabble works, how to use the various apps, etc.  And that has caused him to do some serious thinking about organization, terminology, and so on.

Given what I've seen of his thinking, writing, and understanding of Nabble I'd vote for him as my advocate.  
I'm not Nabble support, but have Nabble running on my Weebly website: http://www.garysgaragemahal.com/