Now that we have the ability to set the "Logged In Only" option for modules on the Home Page, it might be a nice feature to have separate content for not-logged in users versus logged in users.

The current functionality allows me to show or not show the entire "Your Content" module to users not logged in.

I'd like to show not logged in users a welcome message, but reserve the rest of the content for my registered classmates.

Perhaps an easy solution would be to add a second content module to the home page. One could be set as 'public' the other 'private'.

On the TASK LIST is the option for "LOGGED IN Announcements" and "NOT LOGGED IN Announcements". I think this would solve your problem as soon as it is implemented.

It may address my request, but not totally as I'm not really looking for control over announcements.

I'm interested in having control of the main body content of the home page. I'd like some content visible when users are not logged in with the rest of the content visible after log in.

Hmmmmm. I'm on the fence on this one. So I'll have to let all of you decide. The only real way to make this undrestandable is to remove the editor block from the main Edit Home Page area and only leave the portion at the top of the page with the arrows, right modules, etc. Then, we'd need to rename "Your Content" to "Your Content 1" instead. And under that we'd need to add a "Your Content 2". And then to the right of each we'd need to have "Edit" links that could be used to edit each content block separately.

We could do this, but are we going to confuse a lot of people? I know it won't confuse you. But how about new people, who have no idea why there would be two content blocks nor how to use them? I guess we'd really have to well document right on that page why there are two.

How about an informal poll here. Who wants to change it up this way?

I can certainly see why you would be on the fence, Brad. I'm a web developer too and have a good feeling on the level-of-effort to implement this.

Here is a posible implmentation suggestion:

Leave "Your Content" as it is currently.

Add "Public Content" as a second content block and implement it and document it on the Edit Home Page page like the "Login Box" module.

This still makes sense to me, but I'm looking at it from within the context of my suggestion and this dialog. It would take some careful wording for it to make sense to someone outside of the context of this discussion.

I'm certainly willing to follow the majority on this and if it does move forward, I'd gladly help out in the discussing the UI presentation layer and documentation areas.

IF this were done, this would mean that the announcements block COULD appear in the middle of the two content blocks, right? (assuming that there were two content blocks and both were visible to logged in users). I am not saying that this is a problem, just a side-effect.

It isn't that confusing. When you look at the ANNOUNCEMENTS, you have to edit each announcement separately. Editing each content area isn't that bad.

I vote YES.

I think specifying logged in vs. not logged in the announcements is the simplest way to do it. Can we already set the background of announcements to blend in with the white background? (I think it's gray on my site)

I think the bigger thing to think about is that after someone logs in, it doesn't go back to the home page, so would they really see these new announcements unless they know to click back to the home page? I think the navigation of the site is pretty self-explanatory. Especially after someone has been there before, they aren't going to be reading that page you get when you first login. Just some things to think about!

Somewhere on the Task List is a task to allow users to set the background color of the Announcements Board. Thus it could be set to white.

Yes, we're going to ditch the explanatory screen after login now that things do or don't appear on the home page based on being logged in or not. So when we do this, after looking in we'll just refresh the home page and keep the user right there.

To the two home page content areas, I think we can do it if it's documented right, but I also think there needs to be a dropdown menu next to Announcements, Your Content 1, and Your Content 2 that contains:

Logged in
Not logged in
Both

Otherwise there would be no way to show content to ONLY those viewers who are not logged in. And that would make it impossible to show things such as instructions for first time users about where to join, how to use the site, etc...and a lot of people like to do that.

I'll come up with something for this when I have a chance. I do think it makes good sense. In everything we do we have to keep it usable, that's all. Remember that somewhat daunting feeling you had when you were brand new on Class Creator and trying to figure everything out? The more stuff we add the more that feeling grows in new users, and it becomes more important than ever that every little thing we ad is easily understandable and well documented. I think we can do that here though, just need to give it some thought.