Art Appreciation and Techniques/Technical issues

This page documents technical issues and questions that have arisen in the work to adapt Art Appreciation and Techniques from Saylor.org's ARTH101b.

Links opening in separate tab/window
Question: Is there a way to designate in the wiki code that a link open in a separate window/tab? --Alison Snieckus 21:07, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Details: There are a lot of links in the original materials. We are converting as seems reasonable to include the content on the page. We noted in our last meeting that many learners prefer to have a link open in a new tab or window, so they don't lose their place in the content. (Although I have noticed that the back arrow in Chrome keeps my place on the page.

Responses: There is an experimental widget that does this... I just can't decide if it is good style. --JimTittsler 23:36, 26 August 2012 (UTC)


 * This is something I considered for the AST1000 course, but opted against this strategy. It confuses the behaviour of links across different platforms (eg Wiki, course resources hosted on the wiki but embedded in a LMS -- which may not be apparent to the learner, issues with local browsers blocking popup windows etc.). I figure its better for the user to get used to using the browser's backbutton. --Mackiwg 23:44, 26 August 2012 (UTC)


 * I see what you mean. The how and why on this will be useful to include in the new learner training. --Alison Snieckus 20:10, 1 September 2012 (UTC)


 * An alternative that might work well for some uses would be to use a Javascript-based pop-over, similar to the jQueryUI dialog boxes which can be modal (making the method for "continuing" more obvious). This could work well for displaying largish images and captions over the main text for example. --JimTittsler 12:04, 27 August 2012 (UTC)


 * This could be a nice enhancement for art, to have the option for quickly displaying an image in a larger format, but I'm not sure it gets at the links issue...as the content we are leaving as links is largely all-rights-reserved (I didn't mention this in the original). --Alison Snieckus 20:10, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Cropped images
Question: Is there some way to code for an image to be displayed on the page as a cropped image? --Alison Snieckus 23:13, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Details: wp's Art article includes a wide image. They use a template, called wide image, which seems to take a slice from the original file image (thread discussing use of this image in Art101). But it'd be nice if we could have a more general feature which would allow us to display only a part of an image. This would save time/effort in that we wouldn't need to load a cropped image to the commons.

Responses: Not sure - -Jim will need to check what is required on our server. Its working in Wikipedia, but will need to check if its compatible with our version of Mediawiki. --Mackiwg 23:45, 26 August 2012 (UTC)


 * As written, the template made heavy use of a feature from a newer version of Mediawiki. I've hacked on it a bit so that it should do the same thing on WikiEducator.  The example from the Art article works with my browsers, but I don't have a convenient way to check on MSIE.  If testing suggests it is working, I will also redo the tall image equivalent. --JimTittsler 00:01, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Width of an activity template
Question: Is there a way to limit the width of an activity template? --Alison Snieckus 21:00, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Details: The design of this course utilizes activities which are embedded on the page within the context of the learning materials. In some cases, the page layout could be improved if the activity template were limited to a smaller width than the whole page, because the image encroaches on the activity box, which doesn't need to extend the full width. An example of this is in the description on the Artistic roles page.

Responses: This is a bug in the way the activity templates were designed. Its something we need to investigate to find the best solution. I would also like to see this fixed - -but not sure of the capacity needs for the solution. We'll take a look. --Mackiwg 23:47, 26 August 2012 (UTC)