Blocks

Blocks are the "atoms" of the Workspaces. There are two kinds of Blocks. The first group of Blocks (Search-, Notes- and Home/Workspace?-Blocks) represent essential tools that simplify working with the system, the second group of Blocks (Table-, View- and Map-Blocks) represent the fundamental units of content in the system.

Home-/Workspace-Block

Starting point for the user. Lets the user create, open, search new Views/Tables/Workspaces? etc. and manages the user-account (in the home-block) or workspace-information (in the workspace-block). These Blocks cannot be closed and also only exist once per Homepage/Workspace?.

The Home-Block contains general account info and settings for the user, while the Workspace-Block will have project related settings. The idea is to leave out extra group functionality and an Account-Block and integrate everything users need to organize themselves into the Workspace- and Home-Blocks.

Home-screen (and -Block): on your own

Workspace-screen (and -Block): can be shared and worked on with a group of people

Search-Block

Searching for public tables, views, maps and browsing the search results with preview.

Table-Block

Viewing and Editing (depending on access rights) of Tables.

Displays:

• Table
• Table meta data

Functions:

• Browse through the data with pagination, sorting and filtering (datatables plugin for jquery)
• Show/Hide? the different Columns
• Create a View starting with the visible columns of the current Table
• add or remove columns and lines of data
• import data from a file (CSV)
• export data to a file (CSV)

View-Block

Viewing and Editing (depending on access rights) of Views. It is important that the stylesheets of the Views are visibly different from those for the tables so that users know that they are dealing with a View and not a Table, which structurally isn't so different on first sight.

Displays:

• View
• View-Metadata
• Overview of used tables and their owners

Functions:

• View/Edit/Create? the View
• for a demonstration of how View-creation should work, see ​the View Workflow Demo

Map-Block

Viewing and Editing (depending on access rights) of Maps created from Tables/Views?/other Maps.

Displays:

• Map
• mapping layers (every table, every view used for the map represents one layer)
• mapping definitions (definition of what information is represented on the map and how)

Functions:

• View/Edit? the map properties
• Fix and save the map, (export as image?)
• Add Views, Tables, Maps into the map

Messages-Block

Editing and Saving Notes and Messages and sending them to / sharing them with other members. A workspace should always have a notes block and will be visible to everybody who has access to that workspace.

The Editing Functions are supposed to barely make a difference between creating a note and creating a message; if the user fills in a recipient, it will be sent as a message to this user, otherwise it will be saved as a note.

Displays:

• list of messages (from other users), list of personal notes (with inline preview: "DATE, USER: Text Text Text Text [...]" so that short messages/notes are directly visible without opening them)
• message/note display

Functions:

• Adding, removing, sending notes and messages