| Project: | Drupal core |
| Version: | 8.x-dev |
| Component: | tracker.module |
| Category: | task |
| Priority: | normal |
| Assigned: | Unassigned |
| Status: | needs review |
| Issue tags: | Favorite-of-Dries, Novice, Usability |
Issue Summary
I don't know much about Drupal, but I registered to a website using it, and, in the users' own profiles, there is a tab named "my subscriptions", and another named "track". I've asked them about the difference, and they told me they were two Drupal modules with different functions. The thing is, in my own user profile, when I see "track", I just cannot differentiate it from "my subscriptions" (in this context, they just mean the same thing...). This is a usability problem.
The "track" tab should better be named "Contributions" -like in Wikipedia, for example- (possibly, "My contributions", in my own profile, and "User contributions", in other users' public profile, although it is probably more simple to simply call it "Contributions"...). If you want a shorter name, you can use "Contribs", but it is generally advised not to use shorter names, if not necessary, and it is not, in this case, except if there are too many tabs).
I understand that the "track" function permits to track the contributions (without subscribing), and not just to list them, but if there is a separate subscription module, then the name "track", is too similar to "my subscriptions" (note that "Track my contributions", or something like this, would not change anything to the problem -and is probably too long for a tab title).
As far as usability is concerned, it would be a problem to change a tab name in a minor release, so you should probably wait until there is some major release, with multiple interface changes (and you should, of course, properly advertise the name change).
Comments
#1
Very Interesting. I associate "Track" to the module that is doing the tracking (named tracker). So you can see where that name came from.
I agree, though, that naming it something else might be a good idea. What do others think?
#2
"My posts" or "My contributions", or "My anything", even "My track" would be better than just "Track" IMHO.
#3
How about "My Activity", or "My Activities"
#4
The problem with using "My" when looking at another users profile "My" would be incorrect.
#5
So the word "My" would have to programmatic. When you are viewing the posts that you have submitted and the activity you've done on the site the tab should read "My Activity". If you're viewing someone else's profile, it should read "'s Activity"
Sound good?
#6
yep, now all that has to be done is a patch created and submitted for Drupal 7
#7
--username--'s ActivityI meant to say the above. As far as a patch...I'm still setting up my test environment so I can make patches. I'll race ya.
#8
#9
Moving issues from User experience project to Drupal core usability component.
#10
"Contributions" would indicate users actually write valuable content for a website or anything like that IMHO. "Track" or "activity" would be better, since it only describes that the user is active on the site, but it doesn't give any implications on what exactly thet user might be doing. I think those words have a more general meaning.
Personally I like "track" better, but considering simplicity and translations I'd go for "activity", since that's a more general word in most languages.
#11
Xano: I understand your point of the use of the term Contributions. That makes good sense to me.
However, I think the use of the term Activity to describe the content creation events of adding nodes and comments make more sense today than when we first discussed this issue. Many people can easily relate to Facebook's Activity Feed as an analogy for a list of things that a person is generates on a site. So I'd like to advocate for the change of the term "Track" to "Activity" again.
A change to something as long lived as tracker would have to be discussed further though. This is a change that might be welcomed by some, but I don't think this issue has seen enough eyeballs to enact yet.
This change is likely to be a very simple one so I think there is still time to get this into Drupal 7. I'll tag with the Novice term.
#12
@Jao: If you don't have any strong objections, I'll re-title this issue to reflect the naming that seems to have the most traction in the above comments.
#13
Yes, would be nice. Simple first version of a patch attached.
#14
I'll put this in my testing queue today.
#15
After I cleared my cache on /admin/config/development/performance it worked for me.
#16
+++ modules/tracker/tracker.module 5 Mar 2010 15:53:45 -0000@@ -53,7 +53,7 @@
$items['user/%user/track'] = array(
- 'title' => 'Track',
+ 'title' => 'My activity',
I support this change but when we rename the label, we should also update the URL path. The URL should become
user/$uid/activity.#17
Dries: changing %user to %uid is intended or a typo?
This one uses %uid
#18
status for bot
#19
The last submitted patch, myactivity2.patch, failed testing.
#20
Yes, it broke a test, as it should.
#21
Looking forward to seeing this issue go green. yoroy, that is a very intuitive improvement. Do other parts of tracker need to be changed do to the path change?
#22
The breaking tests usually point out the paths that get broken, so we'll wait and see. A final stress test by a human never hurts of course but is not neccessary before test bot is happy
#23
@yoroy: After applying the patch and flushing drupal's cache this patch seems to break tracker.
#24
Should it not be "Activity" instead of "My activity"?
(or if My is used, then for other users it should use the users name.)
Is there also a need to make similar changes for the tracker and tracker/%uid pages?
#25
The last submitted patch, myactivity3.patch, failed testing.
#26
@nbz: good point, use of the term "My Activity" will be confusing for some, since a possible interpretation of the tab name would be, "My relative interaction with that person or if that person is me, my interaction with throughout the site."
Let's see if the addition of this complexity does not put this patch out of scope for drupal 7.
#27
I wouldn't call it "My Activity". It's infantilizing. It reminds to Windows 95 with "My Computer" or "My Yahoo", MySpace. Even Microsoft has stop using it. In Windows 7 is now only "Computer"
Who uses "your" ?
Flickr, Amazon, and others uses "Your account", Twitter uses "your tweets" or "Account"
From what I saw Facebook don't use any possessives, only nouns "Account, Photos,..."
I will go for "Your activity", or only "Activity".
Also interesting to read: My Vs Your http://developer.yahoo.com/ypatterns/social/core/yourvmy.html
We should be consistent too... I made a search in all the code of Drupal core and there are lots of strings where Drupal uses "your". For example "your language", "your content", "your database", "your email", "your comment". But in the other hand I found "My" in "My account" and "My blog".
This should be decided soon, before interface strings are frozen.
Re-rolling patch
#28
I forgot the screenshots. (Should we add a weight, so "Activity" is in the last tab?)
The "/tracker" path also displays "All recent content" and "My recent content". Should be also modified, how? drupal.org/tracker has "all recent posts" instead of "content"
#29
#30
Thanks for looking into this, but strings have been frozen for a long time already. Yes, this is Drupal 8 material.
#31
Consistency++, but not if it's unclear whose content the system is talking about. Yours or theirs?
#32
Nice to see this addressed, I have been hacking core with every update to read 'my contributions'.
#33
I'm not sure why you would hack core for this. Use http://drupal.org/project/stringoverrides.
#34
sorry about my bad habits, I do use stringoverrides as well and it works on most drupal text.
I promise to never hack D7 or D8 core
I promise to never hack D7 or D8 core
I promise to never hack D7 or D8 core
I promise to never hack D7 or D8 core
+100, lol
#35
Ha. :D
#36
Needs a reroll because of the directory structure changes.
#37
reroll
#38
Excellent. One more thing: hook_help() mentions the existence of a Track tab.
#39
My first attempt at a patch. Ever! Changed the hook_help() reference to Activity.
Also, I agree with #18 (change the URL of the tab), although I didn't change that in this patch.
#40
The last submitted patch, activity-help-change.patch, failed testing.
#41
Huh. Now I see why people like *nix. I'm also not sure why it created a huge patch. My bad.
#42
Let's have another go at it.
#43
The last submitted patch, activity-help-change-2.patch, failed testing.
#44
And again....
#45
The last submitted patch, activity-help-change-3.patch, failed testing.
#46
Ok, using a different approach to create it. Sorry for spamming up the issue! I'm what you call a "hands-on" learner.
#47
The last submitted patch, activity-help-change-6.patch, failed testing.
#48
I guess I'll just use the CLI for patches from now on. Sorry for the spam.
#49
Combined the two patches.
I'd vote for keeping the URL. It's not misleasing, we have another URL like that and afterall the module is called tracker. (And a contrib project activity exists.)
#50
The patch in #49 applies cleanly and changes the confusing "track" text to "activity" (which a majority of people have suggested).
#51
#52
It doesn't look like #16 was done? The path hasn't changed.
#53
I have argued against that, but not sure if there is a consensus (so needs review):
#54
I'm for "Activity" but we still need to change the path:
$items['user/%user/track']should be:$items['user/%user/activity']#55
Ops! Sorry, I hadn't read that there was no consensus with the new path.
#56
If the only reason not to rename it is the module is called "Tracker" that doesn't really make sense to me. We should name user-facing elements (menu items, tabs, URLs) according to what makes sense to users. And while Activity module exists, it does not, as far as I can tell, claim this path. And even if it does, Activity module is used as an alternative to Tracker, not alongside it.
#57
Well if the Activity module doesn't claim the URL, and we're already changing the strings to "Activity", then I really don't see why we shouldn't. It helps to keep everything consistent.
#58
Yep. I see the point. Webchick also made this point (as an example): system module exposes admin/modules not admin/system/modules because it makes more sense to the user.
What about the side wide tracker and tracker/all pages?
<?php$items['tracker'] = array(
'title' => 'Recent content',
'page callback' => 'tracker_page',
'access arguments' => array('access content'),
'weight' => 1,
'file' => 'tracker.pages.inc',
);
$items['tracker/all'] = array(
'title' => 'All recent content',
'type' => MENU_DEFAULT_LOCAL_TASK,
);
?>