[schooltool-dev] PyCon Sprint proposal v.3

[Tom Hoffman]

I spoke with Alan, Dave and Jason on the phone following proposal v.2,
and we've moved the ideas forward a bit more.  Dave subsequently put
together a mock-up:

http://www.careercenter.arlington.k12.va.us/cando/schooltool_ui/index.htm

Which we discussed further this morning.

Major features/changes since v.2:

* Instead of the Plone style of a header over tabs, using Google's
(for example) style of a row of links to the major applications (in
Google's case this is "Gmail  Calendar  Documents  Photos  Reader Web
more") right across the top of the page.  In practice these should be
smart enough to highlight the active application and deactivate its
link, but it would still be usable, at least initially, if they were
just dumb links.

* Aside from the specific application tabs (eg grades, calendar, etc),
we're talking about having two additional "core" tabs.

    - The first, tentatively called "elements" would, in effect,
include the containers from the SchoolTool navigation menu that we'd
plausibly need to allow non-admin users to look at directly: Persons,
Groups, Courses, Sections, Resources.  There is probably significant
fine-tuning of exactly what one can do from these views, but the basic
structure will stay the same.

    - The second "manage" tab would only be visible to people in the
site manager group and would include two things.  First, items from
the navigation and action menus that only a site manager would ever
need to manipulate or look at directly (terms, timetables, access
control, app control, site preferences).  Second, a page or pages with
links to common administrative tasks that sit under the "elements"
link (for example Add a person >>
http://example.edu/persons/@@add.html).

* We'll need to think about branding.  We could retain the gray header
space at the top of every page, but it might be best if most pages
just have the top row of links and as much of the rest of the space as
possible is available for the constituent applications (gradebook,
calendar, etc).  So we probably won't have the Zonki logo at the top
of every page, and we'll just have "SchoolTool" in text at the top of
the page.  Thus we'll probably need a more distinctive text logo.  I
tried out some fonts here:

http://www.myfonts.com/FontAlbums/AlbumDetail?aid=301894

"SchoolTool" is tough on a font.  Lots of circles and lines.

Anyhow... obviously this verbal description only gets one so far, but
we're close to the point where we can be drawing a lot more pictures.

--Tom