> The FreeCard Collaboration Infrastructure is
> (sort of) ready. Try it now:
> http://giguere.dsc.uqam.ca/freecard/index.html
> Things I know that need to be done:
Alain: I must be getting desperate. I am replying to
myself!
> * All of the pages have to be re-touched ;
Alain: Much has been done, in this regard, but several
hours will still be required to bring it up to
scratch.
> * Long pages have to be broken down into cards ;
Alain: I am a strong proponent of the one concept per
card/page approach. Modularity is next to godliness,
eh! That way we can associate with each modular
concept, the following context-sensitive operations:
* Vote on very specific concepts/points/ideas
* Comments, and form to make a new comment
* Meta-data
* Help
* References
* Visual navigation MAP (you are here)
* About this card ..
* Edit this card .. (web-form)
Alain: All of this for each and every card of our
web-site. Context-sensitive is key here.
> * Several navigation buttons to be added ;
Alain: Several navigation buttons have been added.
They now number 8 in the navigation toolbar in the
top-frame. Namely: First, Previous, Next, Last,
Contents, Help, Home, and Post. Except for Post and
Contents, the rest should be quite familiar to anyone
who has used HC.
> * Non-discontinuous navigation of everything ;
Alain: The Contents and Home buttons have
substantially improved the situation.
> * Integrated voting/consensus-barometer feature ;
Alain: Every card contains one specific item. You
click on the VOTING button, in the bottom-frame, then
proceed to vote on this specific item. What's more,
our system generates each page in real-time, so it
will be easy to display the ever-up-to-date and
summarized results of voting on this particular item.
And, because each page is also personnalized in
real-time, we could also revive each user's
voting-state, which he could then compare to the
voting-state of the group ; before, during and after
the user votes. The user can vote as many times as he
wishes, as soon as his opinion of the item changes.
Only the user's most-recent vote is kept.
> * etc
Alain: As the Carpenters once sung: "We've only just
begun ...". Too many feature-ideas to enumerate here,
at this time, but I should probably mention that the
bottom-frame will be dependant on the userLevel of the
web user:
1. In its current form, the bottom-frame is the rough
equivalent of HyperCard's message box (e.g. to display
short messages and/or interact with the
web-card/web-HC.
2. I am in the process of transforming the
bottom-frame into another toolbar, symmetrical with
the 8 buttons of the navigation toolbar in the
top-frame. The 8 bottom buttons are (provisionally):
Map, About, Comments, Voting, Meta-data, Edit,
References, Alternatives.
> Uli: Alain,
> looks great! Just two things that bothered me:
Alain: At least we are a duet now! ;-)
> Uli: 1) It uses JavaScript. I'm paranoid.
Alain: Security-wise, JavaScript is no worse than
other languages, it seems to me. The most recent
incarnation of JS has been overhauled in terms of
security. Which is good, I am sure, but which caused
me many headaches this year.
> Uli: (i.e. I had to turn it on in my browser).
Alain: You must be joking, Uli. HTML by itself is VERY
static. The static display of a fast-moving multimedia
QT movie does NOT make it any less static, either.
Client-side interactivity is essential, with or
without Dynamic-HTML. The latter dramatically
exacerbates the need for JavaScript.
Alain: I do not particular like JavaScript either. If
you or someone else can pull it off, it would be nice
to set the language attribute of the SCRIPT tag to
something other than JavaScript, like FreeScript for
example. VBscript did it!
> Uli: Would it be possible to change the
> navigation to use regular HTML?
Alain: I endeavour to be as flexible as possible but,
in this case, I cannot compromise at all. While my
system is 80% server-side, and the 20% client-side
JavaScript that I do use is limited in scope to the
fundamentals ... without JavaScript, the whole
solution falls apart.
> Uli: 2) The downloads don't work,
> they're displayed in the frame.
Alain: Fixed.
> Uli: Also, I don't get anything in the bottom frame.
Alain: That frame was intentionally empty. It was
meant to be the rough equivalent of HyperCard's
message box. Its also great in a drill-and-practice
tutorials, for providing feedback to user and/or
obtaining snippets of information from him.
> Uli: Should I also have turned on Java?
Alain: Not at all. I never touch the stuff.
> Uli: 3) We might want to add some color.
Alain: It was natural for me to go for the B-and-W
color scheme because I am still using B-and-W
HyperCard 2.2. It's simpler to prototype with, too.
And I am a strong proponent of the sparse use of
color, conditionned as I am by Apple's Human Interface
Guidelines.
> Uli: One more suggestion
> which I'm sure you just accidentally missed:
Alain: Accidentally missed ?? I was working with the
content and features that we had at that time. As I
think of new backgrounds that I would like to add, I
add them. One person can only do so much !
> Uli: We should have a spot for news on the main
page.
Alain: Good idea. Provide me with your content and/or
your pages, and tell me where you want them to go.
> It'd be coolest if it would assemble the list of
news
> messages from text files in a special folder. Then
we
> could upload a news flash whenever we upload a new
> piece of FreeCard.
Alain: Perhaps you should talk with Adrian, our
resident Java programmer. He has recently put together
our mail archive (log) that I am guessing operates in
a manner similar to the one you described above.
Alain: In its current incarnation, my system
broadcasts information (in one direction only). The
web interface for modifying the web-stacks,
web-bkgnds, web-cards is not ready yet.
> Uli: I really like the navigational images, the
> general site layout and the organizational
structure.
Alain: Thank you.
> Uli: Especially since the "How can you take part"
> section is now the first thing people stumble
> across, which is what I've been meaning to suggest
> for quite a while and always forgot.
Alain: Great minds think alike ... and differently
too!
> Uli: Just a pity that my orange logo
> isn't on the first page <g>.
Alain: Well .. it is just about everwhere else, Uli
... I thought that we should diversify a teeny little
bit. Very nice logo by the way. I wish we had MANY
more graphics like it to embellish and/or add-value-to
our web-cards. It is harder to publish creatively with
mere text.
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