Summary = teaser = trimmed version = trimmed post?

Another term: in preview mode the teaser is called "trimmed version".

Also at /admin/content/node-settings we have "trimmed posts" and "trimmed version of a post".

1) I absolutely second gaele's opinion that this is far too unconsistent to be acceptable. We should stick to one term.

2) When the decision for using the term "summary" has been made, the linguistic differences between the different possible terms describing our summary/teaser have not been taken into account:

• A summary or abstract is specifically a short version of the text, thus not really part of the text. This is exactly not how our "summary" works!
• Teaser, intro or preface on the other hand are more generic names for some few sentences introducing into the text. These might be a summary or just the first two sentences of the text. That is what we have!

Therefore I hope we could open up this discussion again, as it is vital for the usability of D6.

Pancho: in Drupal 6, a summary is not part of the text. A teaser is. Drupal 6 supports both summaries and teasers.

On one hand I feel we are nitpicking, on the other I feel this is a usability issue, thus important.

My conclusion from #5: a teaser is a summary if "Show summary in full view" is unchecked. Hmm, confusing.

This is not nitpicking.

A summary and the text are TWO things and can exist independently.

A teaser and the text are ONE thing -- the teaser flows into the text.

Many bloggers use teaser exactly as described to keep the front page bubbling with short posts -- One or two lines of teaser, then a "Read More" link to the full text, which is expected to include the teaser.

However, since the default for 'Show summary in full view' is unchecked, that breaks expected usability for many bloggers.

So there are two issues:

1. Teaser doesn't equal summary. These are two separate use cases.

2. The default use case, summary, breaks usability for bloggers.

My thought is to straighten out the structural and semantic issues, and the functionality issues, as follows:

1. Call the chunk 'o' text (whether summary or teaser) a "lead". That is the structure.

2. Set up a default on "Post Settings" with two values: (1) Treat Leads as Summaries; and (2) Treat Leads as Teasers (with explanation in descriptions). That is the semantics.

3. Set up a default on "Post Settings" for "Show summary in full view" where leads are summaries.

4. Do not show "Do not have the "Show summary in full view" if leads are teasers (teasers should always show), and show if leads are summaries.

5. Allow default override for both lead/summary treatment and showing lead as summary at Post level.

Does this approach meet all the requirements? If so, I might try my first patch. So far as I can tell, there's no new functionality, so it really is a patch.

Agree this is not nitpicking.

Many people would take the view that a teaser does not have to be the initial portion of the text. Hence the nodeteaser module for example which in essence allows the teaser to be a separate field -> more of a summary or abstract.

This is the only decent and relevant definition I could find: http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/teaser

I would prefer to have the term "teaser" used throughout (with suitable definition/explanations on the node edit page), and have "Show teaser in full view" checked by default where appropriate, as indeed it is. I think additional Post settings might be an over-complication.

However I appreciate that for many people the term "teaser" is itself confusing. It's just that "summary" is less accurate and hence ultimatlely more confusing. Just as "category" is not an adequte substitute for "taxonomy", we need the terminology "teaser" - but also need sufficient help and explanation for novices. Maybe a "?" help link with JS popup on hover, or something.

Essential reading on this debate: http://drupal.org/node/107061 and links therein. Also http://drupal.org/node/159981 is related.

gpk, you write:

Many people would take the view that a teaser does not have to be the initial portion of the text.

I agree. That is the lead == summary camp (two portions).

I however -- and my small group blog with 8 writers and around 10,000 posts -- am in the lead == teaser camp (initial portion).

(Note: I come to subclassing lead into teaser and summary from long years of editing and production; it's not arbitrary ;-)

What gets me is having only one of the two use cases handled, and that one not mine (although all of D5) -- and then having to retrain my very non-technical writers, having past posts break, and (according to the other thread) more checkboxes and more inline documentation to read.

Can't we just allow reversion to the D5 method? From where I sit, the slider bar is neat, but the hassle of getting to that point just isn't worth it.

P.S. If the Summary really IS a separate thing, why not just make it a separate box and have done, like at Kos? I know it's late to bring this up....

More here. I think these are requirements and conceptual issues, not coding ones. The coding is already amazing...

UPDATE Forgot to say... Most content creators who care about writing, as my bloggers do, are going to want to control their own breaks (and not rely on the automatic breaks).

Why? Because click through, which is measured, from the main page to the post page, can be affected by where the break is placed. For example, writing a question, followed by a break, makes many readers want to click through to the full page to get the answer! You don't get that level of control with automatic breaks. (And there are some writers who look at their stats in, say, Hall of Fame...)

This is a discussion about concepts, both UI and coding concepts. We need names and definitions at several levels. Let me try.

Code:

- Quoting myself: "Drupal has several ways of displaying nodes. One of them is page view, one of them is teaser view. In page view Drupal displays the whole node. In teaser view Drupal displays only the title and the teaser." This chunk of text that Drupal shows is called teaser in Drupal developer lingo. We need a word for "that chunk of text that is shown in teaser view". Better keep it at "teaser".

- How is this "teaser" stored? As part of the body field, or as a separate field. How do you call it?

UI:

- How do you translate this generic concept which Drupal developers call "teaser" into something end-users will understand? Could we keep the term teaser? Or call it lead, or intro?

- We have several uses of the chunk of text, independent of the way it is stored. shunting sums it up nicely here: http://drupal.org/node/159981#comment-660725. I believe most people agree on the uses (though not necessarily on the labels).

Another important question is about teaser workflow:

- How do users perform actions on "teasers"? Do they often choose the teaser break themselves, or do they leave it to Drupal? Do they often switch between "summary" and other uses of the teaser? How is their node writing workflow? As gpk already said, http://drupal.org/node/107061 is essential reading. Still I think we need more end-user input like shunting's.

In my opinion this is not just a labeling issue, so it won't be solved before D7.

gaele @11 writes:

In my opinion this is not just a labeling issue, so it won't be solved before D7.

From my perspective, the D6 "teaser" implementation is, because of usability concerns, broken. So waiting 'til D7 is a problem...

Has this discussion moved to another post?

One other item I'd like to add to this discussion is the relationship between "Length of trimmed posts" on the "Post Settings" page and the actual length of the Summary, Teaser, Lead or whatever it ends up being called. It seems these should be a closely tied together. If as an admin I've defined these to be only 200 characters, then the field needs to only allow this many characters and display this to the end user. The way it affectively works now is that the trimmed post is set to Unlimited *if* you've set the "split summary at cursor" or you've manually set the teaser break in the body. I think it's fine to have this be the default behavior, but not for when an actual character limit is set.

Also, the mockup here improves the display by adding labels to "both" fields.

mshaver, could you open a new issue for this?

Regarding the mockup: yes, you are right. However, I believe Steven somewhere said this behavior is very difficult to program.

"Summary, Teaser, Lead or whatever it ends up being called."

Well, these are actually three different editorial functions:

Summary: An abstract of the complete content of an article or post.

Lead: The introductory paragraph of an article or post -- often includes the "who,what,where,when, and why."

Teaser: Something that gets the reader to click the Read more link and read on.

Since summary and leads need to be complete in order to be readable, they probably shouldn't be automagically broken at all. The same probably does not apply to teaser. And then there are people who just don't care, and the break can happen where the machine makes it.

So what should happen IMHSO:

1. There should be a default setting checkbox for automagic breaks on the Post Settings page (does not now exist)

2. There should be a manual override on the post page itself (does exist).