Some more ideas for
nodespheres... I will add/change this as people
critique it, or I get ideas and the like.
- Navigation.
Since nodespheres will be pulling together certain groups of writeups, there needs to be a way to simplify navigating those grouped writeups. Of course you can click on the nodesphere link and go to the document listing the writeups and description and all that, but this could be annoying for a large nodesphere.
What I see, is the OPTION for a user to include a little mini-navigation "bar" in the writeup header that will offer the ability to jump around the nodesphere. Perhaps a few links like webrings presented in their navigation bar - a "next", "previous", and "random" option. Something like:
Since we have the
writeup header display settings, I see no reason why there shouldn't at least be the
option for a user to have this displayed, should they want to explore the nodesphere in that way.
I realize there are issues with deciding the order of writeups in a nodesphere, but regardless, there will be some sort of "order" (even if nothing else than the order added to the nodesphere), and thus we'll be able to navigate this way.
- Nodesphere Document
As mblase states above, and I came to feel independently of his comments, there needs to be more content on a nodesphere document than just the listing of writeups. A short little description of what it's about would definitely be helpful.
But I was wondering about taking it a step further. Allow the nodesphere owner at least the option of formatting the list of writeups. Huh? I shall explain. A nodesphere, by default, should automatically generate a list of all writeups in that nodesphere. But give the owner a little link on the side which would allow them to treat the listing as editable text. Then they could add any grouping of the writeups in subtopics, list them in any order they so desire, and so on. Of course, people viewing the nodesphere document would have a little link to still let them see the autogenerated list, to be certain of an up-to-date listing of contents.
- Links to other nodespheres?
One question I have is: should nodespheres have a method to be able to link to another nodesphere in the "writeup" in the nodesphere document? It's possible there could be somewhat related nodespheres, and some sort of linkage mechanism might encourage further navigation across and through nodespheres.
Pyrogenic: you seem to be address in the idea of "topics" in your writeup, not nodespheres. there are two different ideas going around, that should be able to coexist, but are not the same thing.