Hi Steven,

I wasn't suggesting that you would actually be trying to wireframe layout,
only that your clients will inevitably be tempted to fiddle with the
formatting of your text-based descriptions.  If you have an app with that
power built into it, then people will always want to mess with it.  You
don't want to get conversations like "I think that that responsibilities
section would be clearer if we showed the various points in a numbered list"
;-)

In other words, by being so very limited, the wireframetool imposes
discipline on the stakeholders.

As for OpenWiki, yes, I absolutely love it.  It is easily the best wiki
engine I have ever seen.  In fact, I went out and got ASP hosting just so I
could run OpenWiki.  I cannot recommend it highly enough.  I'm still not
persuaded that it's a wonderful wireframing tool, but it's a fantastic piece
of software.  Indeed, I believe that the entire wiki concept is the most
powerful to hit the Web since the original Mosaic, but I think that's not a
view widely shared around these parts ;-)

Thanks Steven, let me know how you go with wiki-ing a wireframe.  I'd love
to hear,
LeeBB



-----Original Message-----
From: Steven Ringo [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]


Hi,

LeeBB, thanks for the reply.  Food for thought...

In no way am I conveying layout with the wireframe.  In fact quite the
contrary.  Just showing as task-oriented perspective of what a page is
supposed to do.  I find myself using lots of lists to format the tasks
descriptions on each page; noting important things in italics or bold,
and I find using a wiki's simplified markup (WSML :) )makes this much
easier than continually having to go <ul><li>, etc.  I do also think a
link inline is far more intuitive than ones at the bottom of each page.


I found a really nice wiki - http://www.openwiki.com - the site is down
now, but navigating with google's right click view cached snapshot
worked :-) And the download link worked too (looks like they have a db
problem).  Sad thing is it works on .asp :-((, but it works *well* (as a
wiki of course), and has been very nicely done and thought out.  Is open
source too.

It seems to address your concerns. Although it doesn't display a full
site map with all the content (like yours), it does have a table of
contents macro, listing all pages in alphabetical order.  With a large
site, a detailed site map could become unwieldy.

I am also using it to convey the development reuirements to my
programming team, and sometimes that means putting additional stuff in,
which I do in footnotes, which the wiki lets you do.

It also has some features, which seem really cool for making wireframes:

- In-line versioning so you can see all changes made, *with difference
engine*, highlighting changes, and records who made what changes
(built-in mini source control!)
- Full text search
- Macros to include common stuff - I find myself creating the same
wireframe content for many different pages.
- Table of contents macro (aka site map).  I may be abe to edit the asp
to show the tables text too.  Shouldn't be too hard
- Support for customisation of headers and footers (you can do this with
Lees by midifying the source).
- Having different wireframes in separate virtual directories - often I
don't want one client to see anothers wireframe.
- Footnotes
- Customisable stylesheets

Cons:

- Uses a database
- Difficult to sepearate wireframes, unless creating a new virtual
directory.

Unfortunately Lee I also found some bugs in your s/w (main one being the
parser thinks a line break means start the next page)- which I kludge
fixed and sent to you.

So, it has some advantages and so does your s/w.  For now I am still
evaluating which one best serves my needs.  Will keep you posted.  But
give openwiki a try.  It really has some cool stuff...



IMPORTANT NOTICE:
This e-mail and any attachment to it is intended only to be read or used by
the named addressee.  It is confidential and may contain legally privileged
information.  No confidentiality or privilege is waived or lost by any
mistaken transmission to you.  If you receive this e-mail in error, please
immediately delete it from your system and notify the sender.  You must not
disclose, copy or use any part of this e-mail if you are not the intended
recipient.  The RTA is not responsible for any unauthorised alterations to
this e-mail or attachment to it.  

==^================================================================
This email was sent to: [email protected]

EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?bUrFMa.bV0Kx9
Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail!
http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register
==^================================================================

Reply via email to