ZTNG

From Zanecorpwiki

A "Star Trek the Next Generation" inspired UI.

The original idea didn't start with STNG. I was just imagining how to do navigation on my personal gonzo site, which started with a simple splash and a few options in bars on the side. I started added more of those in my head, and thought, "That's look like a STNG console."

I ended up with a "meta-site" navigation system.

The screen is divided into 10 sections.

• MNP: 'meta-network predecessors'; top and left borders; top left corner is always 'previous'
• MND: 'meta-network descendants'; bottom and right borders and bottom right corner
• AL: 'alerts'; entirely system controlled, flashes when something needs attention; top right corner
• SM: 'system messages'; another system controlled area, scrolls brief system messages here.; top of view, under MNP
• PWA and CWA: 'personal widget' and 'context widget' areas; left and right of page, surrounding the context cartouche and page select areas
• BC: 'bread crumb'; in nook between PS1 and PS4
• CC: 'context cartouche'; center of page
• PS1 - PS4: 'page selection' areas 1-4; arranged around cartouche; area 1 to the north, 2, 3, and 4 continue clockwise
• PB: 'panic button'; bottom left corner

I imagine the system loading like this:

• loads splash page, initially blank^{[notes 1]}
• load and flash ZTNG boot message, initially 'ZTNG: a next generation interface; v. 0.1 pre-alpha'^{[notes 2]}
• load and annotate 'skip boot' control; "Click to skip initial tutorial."
  • button function by 0.2
• load and annotate context cartouche; "Context cartouhe. Click for information on current context and meta-menu."
  • meta-menu, slated for 0.3, includes
    • 'about' opens small about message modal; operational in 0.3
    • 'project plan' links to page in ZaneCorp wiki with current project plan; operational in 0.3; by 0.6 we should be referencing a ZTNG site page
    • 'nutshell' link to page in ZaneCorp wiki with nutshell overview: design, aesthetics, function; in 0.3; by 0.6 we should be referencing a ZTNG site page
    • 'license' links to page about ZTNG licensing; 0.2 pops up modal with "ZTNG is currently a plain old, you have no special rights bit of copyrighted stuff. We're in the process of selecting an open source license."; license should be selected and referenced in modal by 0.2; by 0.8 we should reference a ZTNG site page that offers support, extended licenses (?), etc.
  • context description for this page: "ZTNG is a navigation protocol and rendering application that weaves stuff together. Most concretely, the "stuff" being woven is web pages. ZTNG is partly a menu system that kind of "floats above the pages". You can drop from ZTNG to content, and then pop back into ZTNG from compliant pages.^{[notes 3]}
  • implement context modal in 0.2; in 0.8, I'd like to see the content viewing modal be able to handle footnotes by expanding a little section near the bottom where the foot note appears. You can close the section when you're done.
• load and annotate common breadcrumb; this appears
• load and annotate
• load and annotate
• load and annotate
• load and annotate
• load and annotate
• load and annotate

Notes

1. ↑ TODO: In late Alpha, let's add the feature that you can load with a context cartouche and the system will absorb it.
2. ↑ 0.1 : pre-alpha; 0.2 -0.7: alpha; 0.8 and 0.9: beta
3. ↑ ZTNG can be wrapped around any web page, but the system is really designed to work with ZTNG aware pages... which just means that there's a link or control or something somewhere on the page that'll get you back to ZTNG.