Navigation

My Groups Menu

The principal navigation method between groups is through the My Groups menu, located in the upper left corner of the top bar. Clicking on it shows a menu with a hierarchical list of all groups one is a member of.

Once in a group, the menu title will change to the name of that group. One can click on the name to show the menu again.

Top Bar

The top bar is a three-color band on top of every page within Dgroups. The darkest band on top houses the group menu and the profile menu. The middle band shows group feature tabs when one is inside a group, and the grey tertiary navigation band shows feature details, such as content filter (active vs. archived discussions, for example), sorting/filtering controls, and actions one can perform for the selected feature. The tertiary navigation band also houses the search box on the far right.

Tab Bar

When viewing any page within a group, the tab bar shows all accessible features of that group.

Home tab will always be the first active tab when one opens a group through My Groups menu.

Discussions – click on this tab to show all active discussion threads, sorted chronologically – most recent updated discussion first.

Library – browse the group library.

Calendar – calendar of events of interest to group members.

Members – a list of all group members, a who is who of this group.

Tasks – task list with task assigned to group members.

Inbox – a list of all incoming email messages. This is only visible to a group administrator.

Settings – only visible to a group administrator, this link opens group settings dialog.

A group administrator might have decided to disable certain content types in a group, or prevent the membership list from showing. Only tabs for enabled features will be visible.

Home tab, however, is always visible.

Directory

The Directory shows all groups within Dgroups that welcome participation from new members. A group administrator can decide not to expose the group in directory – in that case, it’s existence would not be obvious to users browsing through group directory.

Group directory is publicly visible – one does not have to be Dgroups user to browse the directory. This also means that the directory will be indexed by search engines, and will appear in their search results. If you are a group administrator, make sure your group title and description are well-written and useful in describing what your group is about.

When in group directory, use the paging bar on the top or the bottom of the page to page through the list of groups you can join.

When you spot a group you would like to participate in or explore its content, click on the join button to request membership.

Discover Other Groups

The Discover Other Groups button is visible in the footer. Click on it to jump into group directory and discover interesting groups you can participate in.

Group Homepage

The group home page has five sections in two columns. The larger, left column houses a welcome message, notifications, and latest content added to the group, broken down into different content types. Of the three, only the latest content is always visible; the welcome message is only visible if a group administrator set it up, and the yellow notification bar appears only when the system needs to notify you about something. The latest content shows latest five of each content type added to the group, sorted chronologically. If there is no content of certain type, the grouping for that content type will not be visible.

The right column houses a short group description and group information. The description is the same description that is shown in group directory. Group information shows basic stats – number of members, contributions, and a number of countries the members come from – and other relevant group information, such as who the administrators are, whether the group is moderated, etc.

Sub-group List

If a group has sub-groups, a list of direct sub-groups will be visible. If there are less than eight sub-groups, the list will be in the right column. In case there are more, the list of sub-groups will appear under the main content area, in a separate frame. The list of sub-groups is only visible if the checkbox ‘Show list of sub-groups on the homepage’ is ticked in the settings dialog.

NOTE Due to a bug, if a group has more than eight sub-groups, after adding a new sub-group the larger frame of sub-groups will disappear. One needs to refresh the page to show it again.

Profile Menu

The top band of the navigation bar also holds the profile menu on the far right. The profile menu shows your email address (that is, username) that you logged in with. Click on the email address to display the profile menu, through which you can change email preferences, edit your profile information, clear your session and ‘remember me’ cookies, and change your password.