I have been playing around with the published options for quite a few hours - testing with existing accounts that are already on the shared list, new accounts that are not on the share list and without accounts.
I have a couple of findings that were not that obvious - at least not to me that is. I also have a couple of usability tips for Coda, therefore @BenLee and the other Codans, I hope you are reading along.
- I think most sharing and publishing options are pretty straight forward and server there purpose. The sharing box has three tabs, the fist tab concerns sharing with specific people or in general, the options are clear.
- the 2nd tab sheet is for embedding - I am skipping that for now.
- the 3rd tab deals with publishing.
On the first tab sheet I am missing one sharing option when you invite named users: the level between view and edit - like a user. The mission can be accomplished with page locking, but a sharing option with the locking options would fill the gap.
With the 3rd tab sheet and some of its workings I have a real problem. There is an option to share in edit mode (see my posting above this one). It works to a certain extend, but what I didn’t realize (but I noticed some odd behavior with other sharing situations) is that when you select the edit mode, the sharing setting on the first tab sheet changes from no-access or can view to edit. This sets your entire doc wide open to anyone who has a link to your table. And when you login, whoever you are, you can go ahead and change anything and everything as much as you like. You could argue that these data were being shared anyway, but that is not completely true: in published edit mode, filters are not accessible and hidden pages are out of sight, so it is not the same thing. Let alone if people are going to mess with your formulas.
Published docs in edit mode work best when someone logs in. To prevent confusion, it would be better if that content of that page would be hidden (pref. by a page we can design or choose ourselves) and a login window would be available right away (rather than first having to push a login button).
About the login screen: it seems that coda almost expects the viewer to not have an account yet. I would prefer a login window with a left and a right section (new users and users with an account) and within each section a top and bottom half for respectively users using their google account or using a non-google account. Looking at myself not using a google account for many coda logins: I have to click 4 times before I can enter my non-google email address (anonymus browser session) and before I get there I have to really look carefully to not end up on a don’t have account yet page. I think this could use some improvement.
Of course we still need to get rid of the copy doc option that is available in the foldout menu next to the document name! Please, please get rid of this sharing options so we can share a lot more and still sleep at night.
