It would be nice to have an indication of what links in a page are new or have been changed recently.

Possible solution:

• When rendering a topic, check the last change date and version number of a topic, and
• Show an icon after the topic, like for example
  • WebNotify for updated topics,
  • WhatsNewIndication for new topics.
• The expiration time could be set as a preference, for example %DAYSTOEXPIRE%. Default is 7 days, it can be customized in the user level preferences in the personal topic.

Above icons are possibly too disruptive when reading text, a smaller round icon, or plain text might be better:

• • WebNotify{^} for updated topics,
  • WhatsNewIndication{!} for new topics.

-- PeterThoeny - 05 Mar 2000

Possibly add an extra field that is a number of days since last change? Some Wiki's use the (popup mini help windows - mental block!) but this is not currently supported by Netscape Browser (and others) To the future, that is probably the go, I think its part of HTML4 now.

-- MathewBoorman - 19 Apr 2000

You mean tooltips? I use a CSS/javascript combination that should work in all browsers (I think I found it somewhere at the Netscape developer pages). See http://fb-bdk.eccoo.rug.nl/html/cataloglist.phtml?ID=bdk for an example (the 'informatie' links have a tooltip); text is Dutch in case you wondered.

However, I'm not sure this 'whats new' indicator is a necessity. I mean, active users are probably using the excellent email notification and there's also the changes page for each web. It does however increase the InterfaceClutter...

-- PeterFokkinga - 19 Apr 2000

I just stumbled onto swiki, a very simple wiki, which has the feature of showing the last edit date on the browser status line when the mouse is over the Wiki Word. It is a bit of javascript, which seems to work on all browsers...

• swiki: http://minnow.cc.gatech.edu/squeak

<a href="/squeak/1560" onmouseover="window.status='last edited 14 days ago'; return true" onmouseout="window.status=' '; return true">News</a>

-- ColasNahaboo - 23 Oct 2001

How about giving an option in the SEARCH{...} macro to specify the number of days in history to look for changes. This way custom searches could only look for changes that happend receintly.

For example:

SEARCH{"Main\.PeterThoeny" order="modified" timelimit="7"} would search for topics with "Main.PeterThoeny" that were modified in the past seven days.

or

SEARCH{"Main\.PeterThoeny" order="modified" since="Jan-1-2001"} would search for topics with "Main.PeterThoeny" that were modified since Jan-1-2001.

-- TWikiGuest - 08 Feb 2001 (a.k.a. Greg Houston)

Sounds like another PlugIn

-- HansDonner - 28 Sep 2001

I was thinking it would be provide for quicker reading if when one clicks on a topic from the changes display TWiki highlighted the actual change, e.g. showed the diff between the current and previous version at the top of the screen followed by the full text of the current version.

-- MartinCleaver - 30 Sep 2001

I like that idea. Even putting the diff at the bottom would be a help.

One thing to consider is that (IIUC), if two or more changes have occurred since the last time you looked (or since the last time WebChanges was updated, which is a slightly different topic), the diff would only show the last change.

Maybe something can be done to show all the diffs since since the last time you looked, or in the last 24 to 48 hours. (On the premise that you look at changes once a day, thus if everytime you look at it, it picks up all the changes in some fixed 24 hour period plus the changes from the end of that period to the current time, you will see all the changes, even though you may see some twice -- to minimize that, you view changes as close as possible to the end of that fixed 24 hour period.)

I'm sure this is confusing and I'm not covering all the details, I hope you can find a way to accomplish what I'm looking for -- something to avoid overlooking a change when two or more changes have occurred since the last time you viewed changes. Maybe something that reports the count of changes in the last 24 hours even if it displays only the last one. (It could be nicer to show them all, it partially depends on how big the page is and how many changes have occurred, and thus how long the page is delayed in loading due to all the extra diffs.

-- RandyKramer - 01 Oct 2001

Working on MasterRefactor, I've been reading and rereading topics, and probably because I'm more aware of topic flow, I've been adding comments in the body of a page more often. Previously, I'd just scan the ends of topics I was following (yeah, by topic title), and appending comments. Now, as I comment in the pages (using italics), I'm suddenly aware of how hard it can be to track changes if they're not simply appended. I can see how topics may die down because in-body comments are not noticed. Highlighting - as in something like this - seems the best approach: easy to scan, attractive, indicates exactly the area involved, can't be confused with normal text formatting (if, say, bold italics was used).

-- MikeMannix - 01 Oct 2001

BTW, the original subject here was highlighting new or changed links. I'm not sure if that's something else entirely. It's quite different from text changes, since changes don't necessarily include links...

-- MikeMannix - 01 Oct 2001

Mike, the text changes you're talking about can be viewed with a diff. The result from this could possible be enhanced by using WordDiff...

The marking of updated and/or new links would mark updates elsewhere on the TWiki which might be related (cause the topics are linked). These links could then be followed to see what's in them (as opposed to using reload on the WebChanges page every 5 minutes to get the latest info).

-- HansDonner - 02 Oct 2001

I think I need to clarify my response: "text changes ... can be viewed with a diff. The result from this could possible be enhanced by using WordDiff..."

First, the topic was about "wondering about indicating links that were new or had been updated." Then suddenly the textchanges came...

I was doing a poor job saying that updated/created links could not so easily be provided as text changes. I agree that a diff is not the most ideal way to track changes you were referring too. That's where the WordDiff comes into play. If used in combination with view (sort of special view, like raw is now) changes can be more easily spotted.

I think the indication of showing new/updated bits and pieces should completely depend on the user (user preference's?).

• In new topic's I'm absolutely not interested in what has changed, since it's all new to me.
• For topic's I've visited
  • I would like to see the text changes compared to the last time I visited that page
    • Comparing to the previous version has no use, if I haven't seen that previous version also
    • This would mean that per user a list has to be kept what pages (on what webs) are visited and which version that was
  • An indication of links that have been created/updated
    • In the last x days/weeks; or
    • Since I've last visited that topic
    • The first can be done, but the latter would make it rather complex..

I can see the added value. The challenge would be to code it....

-- HansDonner - 03 Oct 2001

This is an interesting test case for classification and organization schemes:

• This WhatsNewIndication topic started off wondering about indicating links that were new or had been updated.
  • Within a couple of replies, it slips off-topic into a discussion of spotting text changes - diffs between one or more previous revisions.
    • My last comment continues the diffs thread, but with a specific focus: inserted changes are hard to notice (freeform editing is a major TWiki feature, but when it's used, it's hard to spot).
    • I also mention how the topic has switched from links changes to diffs, and wondering how the two concerns actual relate to each other.
  • Hans answers my question literally (thanks, but not exactly what I meant) and points to WordDiff, which is a discussion of the overkill of diff on long HTML lines (it's hard to spot small changes when diff returns giant chunks)... Which is almost the opposite of my point - to see whole chunks of change.
    • WordDiff leads to DiffsHardToRecognize, which is more of the same - spotting small changes - BUT, halfway through, it hits my point and goes beyond:
      "Tracking changes are important. One of the problems we have had in our installation of TWiki is that people can't track the changes easily. Email is still a good model for collaboration because people get triggered by the email-received event, and can act on it according to different priorities. To incorporate this model into wiki concept is an important challenge. Simple "notify me" won't do it; it should be more than that. The "type of change" as defined above will help in that (i.e. I will subscribe to the topic to notify me for only major changes)..." -- VinodKulkarni - 14 Jun 2001 - DiffsHardToRecognize
• There's a clear fundamental area to improve, almost fully articulated through all of this - best put in general terms in the whole Vinod post, but, if not for this bit of a ramble, dispersed and trailing off on all fronts...

Maybe a third (?) of Codev content is concerned with ways to connect and refactor: here's a perfect instance, where all of the above should arrive at a definite, key proposed feature and a to-do decision, but may not for a while because the discussions haven't all come together.

-- MikeMannix - 02 Oct 2001

Let's restate this problem, borrowing text from above, and I'll give an alternate solution that ties into another idea I had a few weeks ago: (This combines PageBookmarking with WhatsNewIndication.)

"It would be nice to have an indication of what links in a page are new or have been changed recently."

I would restate this as: "It would be nice to hvae an indication of what links in a page are *new to me or have been changed since I last viewed them*".

Possible solution:

• When viewing topics, if the tracking preference is affirmative, TWiki should record what I viewed when by appending to a tracking page ( StephenWilliamsTracking ).
• When rendering a topic, check the last change date and version number of a topic, and
• Whether it is on a list of pages I have viewed, and
• Show an icon after the topic, like for example
  • WebNotify for updated topics,
  • WhatsNewIndication for new topics.
• The expiration time could be set as a preference, for example %DAYSTOEXPIRE%. Default is 7 days, it can be customized in the user level preferences in the personal topic.

Additionally, the user should be able to indicate whether the current page is to be marked ReadCompletely, ToBeRead, ToBeReadFirst, BookMarked, ToComment, etc. Each ID tag within the page (any situation where "URL#section" works) could generate a button that would bookmark that area of the page.

Part of the idea is to keep track, on an individual basis, what pages have been read, partially read, etc., and to partially reset this ("Updated") when pages are changed. This would be useful for code reviews, novels, computer based learning, or any other situation where you want to remember the disposition of a large number of pages.

-- StephenWilliams - 01 Sep 2002

The more I work with TWiki the more I have a longing for some kind of what's new feature. I know I can scan the changes topic and check out the pages that are reported via webnotify emails, but if I don't keep up to date on those it is easy to get overwhelmed.

-- GrantBow - 29 Oct 2002