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TS 6 Refresh

msrich

W2K TS 6 + jumbo patch

There's no "Refresh" button in the TeamSite GUI any longer (Content Center Professional GUI).

Can anyone offer any explanation about how well the browser Refresh button (listed in on-line help as the TS 6 equivalent) actually refreshes the screen? When should a refresh be needed in TS 6? Is there an automatic, periodic refresh?

Edited by msrich on 01/06/04 01:50 PM (server time).

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Comments

pflory

For one thing, users are probably more familiar & comfortable using the builtin web browser buttons & concepts, such as Refresh. More in line with general browser functionality & web apps.

I have not heard/seen anything about ContentCenter UI pages auto-reloading themselves. Older versions
of TS did not do this either.

Most of the time a refresh is not needed. The chief exception may be workflow screens/pages, if/when
other users are transitioning job tasks, or when new jobs are assigned. For example, my tasks information
could be considered "stale" if a new job is assigned to me and I haven't refreshed the screen for some time.
Even in this case, however, there is commonly an email notification accompanying the arrival of a new task.
So new-job surprises should be quite uncommon.

Are you experiencing any problems regarding this matter? If so, let us know -- perhaps a feature request
is in order, esp if others are having similar problems.

Paul

Paul Flory

msrich

One example where browser's Refresh button does not yield desired result; Content Center Professional:

Navigated to view of workareas (i.e., positioned on 'workareas' placeholder within branch structure in left-hand pane, viewing list of workareas in right-hand pane); click browser's Refresh button; GUI jumps to display of current branch itself (i.e., left-hand pane is now navigated to the branch, and right-hand pane displays any sub-branches, Staging, EDITIONS and WORKAREAS placeholders).

Migrateduser

So new-job surprises should be quite uncommon.

Not true. People have to refresh a lot when monitoring their jobs and trying to get through a job that is high priority. Waiting for externaltask scripts - there's no way to know when an externaltask script is done unless you just keep refreshing. This is one of the more undesirable "features" of TeamSite.

Dave Smith
Sr. Software Engineer
Nike, Inc.
(503) 671-4238
DavidH.Smith@nike.com

iwovGraduate

As much as I respect Smitty77 and undertand the concern, I have to disagree.

Lets say Interwoven provides a feature that the to-do list refreshes automatically whenever there is any change in status of any of the active workflows. Lets also imagine that there is some configuration file somewhere that toggles the auto-refresh to on/off per user. Would this be really desirable ? I wouldn't think so. I am inclined to think that it would be more annoying if I am in the middle of something and boom - the screen refreshes. I have to reorient myself to what I was doing.

The argument can be swayed both ways. If the users are one their toes just monitoring the status of the jobs most of the time (which I doubt is the case), auto-refresh maybe desirable.

pflory

Well, I'll admit that if email notification isn't being used, new-job surprises are far more likely. I believe I've heard that someone had implemented instant message notification, but *most* companies' employees aren't IM addicts quite yet, so I wouldn't bank on that method of communication.

Being a web application, the "freshness" factor of the TS UI has always presented interesting scenarios for TS implementors and users.

[Switching over to brainstorm mode]

Perhaps a javascript-based solution could be forged -- say, an icon-like thingy could periodically poll the TS server to check for any updates that would render the current web page as obsolete. Maybe a short text message could pop up (not unlike IM alerts) indicating the sort of update: new task, changed task status, new file, changed file, etc. Yeah... this would be like an IM portlet built into the TS UI. Constantly checking for updates.

Has anyone seen anything similar to this functionality in other web-based products or web apps?

This might be good fodder for a feature request....

I'm sure this could be achieved with Flash quite easily, though Jakob Nielsen might gripe about that.

-Paul

site of the day
http://www.microsuck.com/content/ms-hidden-files.shtml

Paul Flory

gzevin

well, it doesn't now refresh even where TS 5 used to - and - because the refresh button itself is gone, the user experience is really bad.

Greg Zevin, Ph.D. Comp. Sc.
Independent Interwoven Consultant/Architect
Sydney, AU

Migrateduser

I wasn't suggesting any kind of auto-refresh that just refreshes the screen every 5 seconds - that would be ridiculous. What would be better is if a callback from an externaltask would initiate a refresh. The new CCI links should be able to be utilized to do this within the bowels of the callback functionality. The workflow engine has not exactly been overhauled at all and is getting to be a little archaic. Little things like this could provide a big improvement.

Dave Smith
Sr. Software Engineer
Nike, Inc.
(503) 671-4238
DavidH.Smith@nike.com

Gregg Faus

I don't believe there is a way to selectively refresh the page from the client end. A polling type mechanism could be built with IE and a client-side instance of the MSXML parser, but this would only work on a few select machines. Through this instance, you'd make a remote request to the TeamSite server and check the status. If it has been transitioned you would refresh the page.

An external task could not initiate a refresh because the client web browser is stateless and therefore would have to check to see if task is transitioned and respond accordingly. With that said, I don't believe Interwoven could implement this because it wouldn't work on all client platforms.

Migrateduser

Were are the places it refreshed in 5.5.2 that it isn't refreshing in 6.0? We'll try to address those as bugs.

Why would having a redundant refresh button in content center be a better user experience that just using the browser's refresh?

What issues are there besides:
-Refresh doesn't always got back to the correct page in 6.0 (bug)
-Existing 5.5.2 users are "used" to having refresh

gzevin

I am referring to what Dave is talking about - workflow refreshes.

Now about browser refresh - teamsite used to open in a separate, frills-free window, where there were no toolbars - and this is the way to continue - it uses the browser as a delivery tool for its interface - and in my opinion, should never rely on the browser's UI settings in its functionality - even if some buttons could be percieved as 'redundant'. What if my user preferences in the IE don't have the toolbar with the refresh button???

Greg Zevin, Ph.D. Comp. Sc.
Independent Interwoven Consultant/Architect
Sydney, AU

Migrateduser

One of the advantages of using the browser's refresh is that the users can use browser shortcuts keys like "F5."

The use of the daughter window and the removal of the browser buttons is an extreme application model that isn't commonly used. UI folks have argued over it extensively, but best practice and common use (survivial of the fitess) have shone that good web apps have embrace the navigational web model as opposed to subverting it. But, that may all swing back the other way as flash apps become more standard. ;-)

gzevin

you really made me laugh.

SO many users don't know about F5, so many don't know about the refresh button .. And these users IMHO are sometimes the majority of non-technical users of teamSite.

given the fact that till TS 6 they got used to prevoius interface (as you mentioned above), I think the decision to rely on the browser was not wise. IMHO again.

I am sure the UI guys had discussed the new UI - but, as I said above - what would you do to refresh if the user has changed their 'navigational web model' so it's not usable?

Greg Zevin, Ph.D. Comp. Sc.
Independent Interwoven Consultant/Architect
Sydney, AU

TxtDynamic.ssd.zip

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