Talk:Adventist Youth Honors Answer Book/Nature/Amphibians/Sandbox

Feedback from DesignerThan

I had a look and the templates and I must say ... very impressive work. The feedback I have is a question of liking. I would like it more if the single requirements were headings so the table at the top could be a table of content so it is possible to jump directly to the instructions.

Why did you add the collapsable boxes? Edit: Upps forgot the signature :/

I guess I would do it something like that Adventist Youth Honors Answer Book/Nature/Amphibians/Sandbox2. It is not perfect. For example the template for the headings is missing. I just implemented it so there is some visuals. --DesignerThan (talk) 18:39, 29 October 2020 (EDT)

I've not been able to transclude the requirements from a different page, get them to show up as headings, and still have the [edit] link take the user to the page where the answer keys can be edited. Adding heading markup in the template makes it insist on opening the ansreq template's edit page which will be protected from editing except by admins. I don't think it's possible to get all three of those things without delving into the mediawiki php, which is something I absolutely do not want to do. I got two out of three, and the blue boxes clearly set the requirements apart from the answers.

Putting the answers into a collapsible box groups them together nicely, especially when it comes to the sub-requirements. If you collapse requirement 11, 11a and 11b collapse with it. It also provides a visual indicator that the subrequirements belong to their parent and allows instructors to pre-collapse all the answers and project only the questions onto a screen when teaching. The answers can be expanded as desired during the presentation, so they can ask the students to propose answers before revealing them.

I plan to remove the table of contents from the answer keys since their main function was to show the requirements, which we can do as in the original Sandbox rendition.

The blue boxes make is super easy to scroll though the answers to the next requirement, and that got pretty good reviews from the team who requested these changes in the first place. They also requested a link to the printable requirements-only page, which I have provided, though that could certainly use some huge aesthetic improvements. --Jomegat (talk) 19:27, 29 October 2020 (EDT)

Okay. Thanks for the answer. Thats sad. Would have been great. Maybe I will have an idea. --DesignerThan (talk) 11:24, 30 October 2020 (EDT)

I hope you do get an idea. I really wanted to preserve the headings for the requirements. But unless a way can be found to do that and still have the text of the requirements on a different page, it's a trade I think we have to make. --Jomegat (talk) 17:46, 30 October 2020 (EDT)

Maybe I had an "Aha!" moment. I created two new templates to summarize the requirements but with links to the appropriate section in the answer key. I think it's an improvement. The "requirements" section pretty much reproduces the TOC, except that it only lists links to requirements and subrequirements, and not to "sub-answers". I might like this better than the original TOC. Let me know what you think. --Jomegat (talk) 18:42, 30 October 2020 (EDT)

Sorry for the late reply. I am at the house of my parents in law and helping them with their work, there is much to do at the moment, but back to the topic. Thats a nice improvement. It really helps to navigate through the page. Great work. But I must say, that I am not that much of a fan of the boxes and the way the requirements are shown, because there is so much repetitions and so many headings and stuff. I guess if the boxes are wanted I would reduce the colored sections down to one and write it like that: "Requirement XX: ...." and I would remove the word "Answer" right before the heading. That way it would get much clearer and easier to read I think.

Maybe you could have a look at the Sandbox2 and tell me what you think about it? If you like my approach and think it is worth talking about it, I would be glad to get some help of yours. The problem is described on its discussion page. --DesignerThan (talk) 06:00, 4 November 2020 (EST)

Unindenting... Take a look at the Cats - Advanced honor, requirement 2c. This is very much an outlier in that the requirement includes a table. To get that into the requirements-only page, the table pretty much has to be part of the requirements page, and that will absolutely prevent it from being embedded in a header.

As for the "Answers" right before the heading, that's there so that when the answers are collapsed, it gives a clue as to what the "Expand" link does. If you are skilled in CSS, maybe you could create a new table class that says "Collapse Answers" or "Expand Answers" - that's definitely beyond my skills, but if it's something you could pull off, I think it would be a good solution. Or maybe you can think of a different way to address that problem.

I'll have to think about reducing the boxes down to a single color. That's how we did the requirements in the IA section, and I thought it looked pretty good (but I've already admitted to not being a layout expert). I'll try to gather feedback from some of the users. If the prevailing consensus is to reduce, we'll reduce. --Jomegat (talk) 23:40, 4 November 2020 (EST)

Oh okay. I understand. For me the color is not the problem, that looks nice. But there are 3 headings and I think it would be nice to declutter it a bit. Is the heading in the box needed? Maybe it is possible to change the link in the "TOC"-Section to jump not to this heading but to the requirement box? I guess that would also look a bit cleaner.

For the answer text I guess I have an idea. It is possible to change the text of the link to open the box. The text could be for instance: "Show the answer"/"Hide the answer". I'm trying it out in the Template:Ansreq/Sandbox, but I'm struggeling with the unique ID for the toggle button and I will need to optimize the CSS more then it is now, but sadly I don't have enough time for that right now. Maybe some one has an idea how to implement it. --DesignerThan (talk) 05:34, 5 November 2020 (EST)