Dgroups Feature Requests

From Dgroups

Welcome to the Dgroups Feature Requests Wiki! A 'wiki' is simply a collective authoring tool. Think of this as "whiteboard" on the web. Add features that you would like to see in Dgroups, we welcome any suggestions.

Please add to the feature requests by adding the following information:

• What?: feature name / description
• Why?: explantion of why you believe it is a good feature
• your name, your organisation, date

Example

• Every Dgroup should have a wiki: A wiki is simply a way to collaboratively create documents.
• This would be a useful feature for groups developing documents as it eases the collective authoring process while keeping a sense of history of the document. Much better than passing MS Word documents around.
• Sarah Kerr, Bellanet, 2004 06 18

Feature Requests

• RSS at Subcategory level on the DGroup online interface
• This feature would allow members of a DGroup to collectively nurture a specfic topic as the posting done on the subcategory (e.g. vacancies) could be syndicated via the RSS converted to HTML and displayed on a dedicated webpage.
• Giacomo Rambaldi, 1 September 2007

• Online automatic translation of messages posted on the Dgroups. Babelfish or google translate could serve the purpose.
• This feature would enable basic understanding of postings by a wider audience and increase the use of the DGroups online interface.
• Giacomo Rambaldi, 20 April 2007

• Edit button required for a previously entered event in the Events Calendar menu.
• This feature is required to make amendments or inputting additional information of event. Important tool for dynamic events.
• Jaya Chittoor, CSDMS, 13 Jan 2006

• Modify the new groups RSS feed so that it indicates whether the group is open or closed.
• We publish the feed on our page http://www.iconnect-online.org/interact and it is a bit misleading because people don't know whether the group is open or closed. Alternatively, suggest creating an altogether different feed of only OPEN groups.
• Katherine Morrow, IICD (acting webmaster), 2005 11 29.

• Facilitate the customization of introductory messages in individual Dgroups: In the admin window, make it simpler to add html instructions to render an intro message (in individual Dgroups) Dgroup that can be customized with an image (logo, picture, etc.).
• Luis Barnola (ICA)

• Suggest using the a better categorisation system. see http://www.dgroups.org/groups/ sectors for current list.
• The current categories are much too broad to be used for RSS. I would suggest that Dgroups adopts either OneWorld system, see www.oneworld.net (It works) or another more appropriate categorisation.(Reuters? UN) This was brought up 3 years ago. The advatnage of using OneWorld -you could directly link the category pages of OneWorld and Dgroups. see http://www.oneworld.net/article/search/advanced/ for a list of topics.
• DaleChadwick

• Search mechanism for members within individual Dgroups: Add up a search mechanism (sort/search by last name, organization, etc.) that makes it easier to find up individuals subscribed to a particular group.
• Currently, Dgroup only displays a chunk of 20 names at a time, making it a very painful listing process.
• Luis Barnola (ICA)
• agree with Luis on this. Id suggest follwing the conventions used on the Dgroups message page. You can short messages by date author and subject. DaleChadwick

• Improve the display of thread messages in individual Dgroups: Please improve the way thread messages are displayed: please indent responses to original messages to better visualize the discussion thread.
• Luis Barnola (ICA)

• Global Search Engine: This would allow searching of all open groups, allow combinations of the existing criteria, name searches and keyword searches. * DaleChadwick

• Mentioned in context of Open Source version during training: Live online chat tool incorporated into each space (like yahoo, MSN, IRC chat), Online photo gallery, Polling, Voice over IP.

• Keep category navigational bar in non-admin section of Resources.
• While navigating resources categories in admin section of Dgroups it's easy to locate where I am due to the title bar 'cat1 > cat2 > cat3'. While browsing Resources on the Dgroup itself, I only see the category that i'm in ('cat3') instead of showing the parent categories as well as the admin section displays. This would be very useful to have this mirrored in the Dgroup and not just the admin section.
• David Schwartz, IDRC

• Upcoming calendar events on home page: Similar to the listing of "recent messages" and "recent resources", there should also be a listing of upcoming events extracted from the calendar. This would give more visibility of upcoming group events similar to the visibility which messages and resources receive.
• Mark Faul, Bellanet

• Ability to have personal preferences attached to profile: Preferences such as default language when i'm visiting a group if it's available (overriding group default language) and message display format (if someone would rather see threaded than by date).
• From The Hague training and Sarah Kerr

• Multi-Day event in calendar should be displayed on all days in month view. Curently a multi-day event only displays on the first day of the event.
• From The Hague training.

• Dgroups workspaces/calendar: date format -European format.
• From The Hague training

• Dgroups creating: Archiving solution- like testing option in set up should be able to say archive.
• From The Hague training

• Dgroups site: browse groups by language.
• From The Hague training.

• Dgroups workspaces/profile: Only one profile per user. Some want differnet profile per group.
• From The Hague training

• Dgroups stats: more statistical information available.
• From The Hague training

• Disable attachements: could be done in our Virtual Campus skin or as a general feature for Dgroups?
• From The Hague training

• Ability to have "child" lists: Essentially, this would allow sub-teams within larger teams.
• Sarah Kerr (from a suggestion/idea of Tim Ryan, WHO)
• This is already possible in Lyris. Can have child and parent lists DaleChadwick

I should have clarified to say enable the Dgroups system to have parent and child lists with the knowledge that this is already possible with the MLM. -- Sarah Kerr

• Edit workspace interface available in all languages: Currently, if you wish to edit a workspace supporting only language(s) <X> with language(s) <Y> (where <X> and <Y> denote distinct sets(lists) of languages, you can't do so. The interface will only be viewable in language(s) <X>.
• From Jaya's notes.

• Feedback form: Should have an easily accessible "please provide us with some feedback" form.
• From Jaya's notes.

• Allow user with creator rights who is an admin of a workspace to delete it: Currently, if a user is an admin of a workspace (but did not create it), they cannot delete it. It is desired that a user who is an admin of the space, but who additionally has creator rights (but did not necessarily create workspace X) to delete workspace X.
• From Jaya's notes.

• Font size of the login/logoff should be editable.
• From Jaya's notes.

• Admins should be able to change the colour of the header links (links contained within header bars).
• From Jaya's notes.

• Resources Ranking: Resources can be ranked by administrator(s) and then sortable by this ranking as well.
• From Report on the Future Platform Development: Sept 11 2003

• Statistics for Admin(s): Administrators can view basic statistics for their Dgroup.
• From Report on the Future Platform Development: Sept 11 2003

• Public application form: Prepare a form which sends submissions out by email to new mailing list called dg-apply@dgroups.org which any partner can join if they want to.
• From Report on the Future Platform Development: Sept 11 2003
• DaleChadwick brought this up at a peer review during the KM4DEV meeting in Amsterdam October 2003. The general concensus was against a public application form. They were in favour of increasing the number of creators. This would allow viral marketing and build the idea of community. ie any creator could create a new creator.

• Ability to change email address: Users should be able to change their email addresses in their profiles (vs. un-subscribing and re-subscribing).
• Sarah Kerr (although, I know this has been suggested before!)

• Ability to change email receiving settings from Dgroups profile: Users should have the option to change email settings (such as no mail and digest) directly from their profile for all lists to which they belong.
• Sarah Kerr

• Ability to import mailman archives.
• Avi Caplan

• Global Dgroups Search Engine: If anyone from the "critical mass" of Dgroups influencers can implement a better dgroups search engine, that would be great. Allow combinations of the existing criteria, name searches and keyword searches.
• Dale Chadwick

• Non-fixed font sizes: the font sizes are fixed (and way too small); they should resize according to browser preferences.
• Dale Chadwick

• Sub-conferences in Messages: having a sub-category (or sub-conference) feature in the messages section, like there is in the resources section, would help a dgroup have focussed discussions with several threads in a place distinct from the general message board. For example my dgroup is about to start some focussed thematic discussions and it would be helpful to have them as sub-conferences rather than mixed in together on one board, and with other unrelated/non-thematic posts.
• Jo Maher CAFOD 17/02/05

• Events: Include in the form to add events a possibility to attach pdf or Word documents like the programme of the workshop or the conference.
• Urs Karl Egger, Skat, March 9, 2005

• Multimedia Resources. The Dgroups resources tool could manage graphics as well as videos to share amongst the users and partners.
• I think more and more organisations will be using video as a Knowledge Sharing tool and as connectivity issues are tackled, partners in the south will also increasingly be able to access them.
• Nynke Kruiderink, IICD. Monday, 30 May 2005

• Next Message/Previous Message: This would permit us to move through the discussions without having each time to pop out to the main Messages page.
• Eric Britton, The Commons, Paris, France, "Europe", 31 May 2005

• Upcoming Events; It would be good to be able to click directly to this from the left menu on the home page.
• Eric Britton, etc. http://www.mlmleads.fromru.com/mlm/

• People/Profiles: (a) Slot for address details. (b) Larger box for Comments.
• Eric Britton, etc.

• Dgroups feedback: Be nice to see what you are doing with these good suggestions.
• Eric Britton, 11 Febrary 2006.

• On the Members page, I would like to suggest the check box 'Are you sure?' underneath the 'Delete member' button is removed and replaced by a pop-up message 'Are you sure? Yes/No' which would appear after you press 'Delete member'.
• Neil Pakenham-Walsh, HIF-net

• On the 'Moderate messages' page, I would like to suggest that if the button 'Approve' is pressed, a pop-up message appears saying 'Are you sure? Yes/No'.
• Neil Pakenham-Walsh, HIF-net

• Search Function: Requires user guidelines. At present too opaque.
• Eric Britton, 11 Febrary 2006.

• Search Function: Simply does not work. (Nor apparently does this Wiki. Appears pretty dead to me. And to you?)
• Eric Britton - eric.britton@ecoplan.org. The New Mobility Agenda is on line at http://www.newmobility.org (And hey!, we answer our mail)

• Author names interactive with profiles -- Would be nice to be able to click the name of authors _wherever they appear_ to get a feel for fellow members while perusing messages and resources, especially when one is first new to a Dgroup;
• Cindy Sue Causey, Private Disability Advocate, Member Disaster-Disability Dgroup, 2006-05-21.

• Less new (popup) windows for better accessibility -- Just tested and is occurring in both Internet Explorer and FireFox. For those with dexterity disabilities who use only the keyboard to maneuver the Internet, a couple of trips around a Dgroup immediately fills the desktop with multiple new windows (popups), thus becoming extremely difficult to navigate from that point on.. Thank you for your considerations of this as being in the interest of overall website accessibility. :) ;
• Cindy Sue Causey, Private Disability Advocate, Member Disaster-Disability Dgroup, 2006-05-21.

• Folders in the area of resources in order to sort various types/content of uploaded files
• Petr Kosina, CIMMYT (CGIAR)

• Some easier arrangement of choosing the way how I want to receive messages from group - daily digest, full messages, etc. Now it has to be done by sending emails, could it be though checkbox in settings?
• Petr Kosina, CIMMYT (CGIAR)

• Wiki for the DgroupsI believe that members of many Dgroups are jointly developing various documents. Would it be posible to provide an option to link individual groups to wikis?
• Petr Kosina, CIMMYT (CGIAR)

• User Interface Improvements: It is difficult for members to find the ‘login’ and ‘join’ options on the screen due to the small font used; the same issue for the exploration of the messages, which is complicated by the absence of a search function; and finally the fact that the font sizes of the website are non-adjustable and therefore more readable on some computers than on others.

• RSS feed for Events. If a group is using dgroups, but also has another website, it would be useful to have an RSS feed for events so that these can be shown elsewhere.
• Andy Dearden, July 2008.