Synopsis: create a new document type, which supports:

• Multi-page hierarchical navigation and editing
• Distinction of author(s) / discussant(s)
• Hierarchical discussion per page

Status: Conceptual

Contact: yish

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See example here: http://vision.noe-kaleidoscope.org/hyperdocument/ (also source of all illustrations)

Rationale

Most systems provide limited functionality in terms of supporting the social dynamics of on-line collaborative editing. Such functionality should include:

• Distinction between different roles (author, editor, discussant)
• Upfront contextual meta-data (summary, owner, last changed)
• Hierarchical document structure
• Threaded discussions
• Notifications
• Export to a variety of formats

XWiki supports some of these, and has a provision to support others through custom page templates. Other features need to be added. Also, the common features need to be made extendible, i.e. a mechanism is needed by which sub-classes of "discussion document" could be spawned easily.

Specification

A discussion doc is a multi-page, hierarchical document, where each page has:

• A header, which presents page meta-data
• A main body, which html text
• A threaded discussion area

The document as a whole has a navigation and structure editing facility.

Whole Document features

Figure 1: Discussion doc overview

Figure 2: discussion doc index view


Figure 3: Discussion doc export view

Single page features

Figure 4: Discussion doc page