Help design the new collaboration site, your suggestions please...

[Corey]

OK I've been planning this for ages and Protocol just gave me the impetus I need to get it going. A collaboration site where we can gang up on projects. Brilliant stuff Protocol! Ok so the decision is now made to provide a collaboration tool, the only issue becomes what and how. Please tell me what features you would like to see and I will see what I can do. :)

[Intrigued]

Abilities for such tool:

Voice Chat
Text Chat
Webcam Chat(?)
Whiteboard
File exchange
Real-Time Translation Mechanism
Link Exchange "Billboard"

That's a few to start with anyway,

[Corey]

Unfortunately I can't add anything which will require moderation... So we're going to have to stick to the bare bones basics. This is going to take some figuring out because we can't offer a file exchange on our server. I wonder if there's any web sites such as Source Forge which would be a better choice? I think I'll have a look around Source Forge.

If anyone has any good links to collaboration services let me know.

[Intrigued]

I understand Corey. I was under the assumption this was something you were "flying solo" on.

But, this is still very interesting nontheless!

[JimS]

I really like this idea, thanks Protocol and Corey.
I think that Source Forge is a good place to get ideas from. I do have one concern though. I understand Protocol’s use of the moniker Open Source, is as a metaphor, and that’s great, but when it actually comes down to it, I think we will be much better off to call it something else. From my understanding, the code sharing we are talking about doing, is quite similar, but is not in reality, true Open Source. It might just be semantics, and perhaps I’m getting all worked up for nothing, but I fear we could be heading for a negative backlash from the true Open Source community, if we try to label our efforts as such.

I do believe what you guys are suggesting is a great idea, I just want to help guard it against causing the AMS community a black eye.

I do hope that this post is seen in the positive light that it is meant as, and not seen as me being negative to the idea.
:)

[Corey]

OK here's what we'll do. We'll start this here as a forum. If it grows over time into something which requires a larger system, then we'll come up with something.

The main thing about making this work here in the forum is going to be coming up with a simple yet workable system of "rules". I'll give it some thought. I also have to look around for a good free file host since we can't do a file exchange here at IR.com for security reasons. Should be able to figure something out.

[JimS]

Corey, I think you have an excellent idea in spending a day to think about setting up some ground rules to this. Rules aren’t all necessarily meant to be limiting, they can be empowering also.

I have been thinking about this, and have a couple thoughts that I’d like to share for consideration.
1) I think that it should be set up so as to make it easy to contribute to. I understand the limitations to using the company server for file exchange, but I do think this will be more successful if it is easy for the contributor to upload his/her work, someplace that is accessible to everyone. I fear that forcing the contributor to carry the complete bandwidth burden himself, could slow contributions, and at worse, be a inversely proportionate penalty on the contributor. The person who works the hardest, and contributes the most, or the most popular stuff, would also have to pay the largest bandwidth charges each month, just to give it away. So, I really like your idea Corey, to find a good fee file host, right from the beginning on this.

2) Reward. I do feel that this is an important topic that we should look at when we are considering the rules. Obviously since we are talking about sharing free code, we are not talking about financial reward, but rather recognition. If Protocol shares a cool project that he has spent a good deal of time and effort creating, then I come along and make, what I feel is, a slight improvement, my release should still recognize the fact that my contribution is a derivative of Protocol’s previous work.

I have noticed that many times in the source code of free HTML, JAVA, PERL, PHP, etc., scripts, there is a commented out heading, that allows free use of the script, as long as the header ‘recognition’ information stays in the source code. This isn’t something that is going to effect the end user of the program, but it is a way to pay homage were due, and maintain a level of integrity among programmers.

The down side of this idea, is that version 4.86.4 of a contribution may have ten commented out headers, that would need to be included in the source for fair distribution, but I think that this is probably a fair price. It has never caused me to skip using a free script.

I think that addressing this issue at the start, could help prevent somebody from getting their feelings hurt, somewhere down the line. Heck, I’ll bring this idea home with a personal example. Earlier this month I spent a day messing around, and created a little musical keyboard app, that I shared with the community. I am very pleased that two other developers here, Protocol, and Intrigued, have added on to it. I was hoping that might happen. They each, probably spent as much or more time as I did, working on this project. I certainly feel that they deserve lots of credit. At the same time, I think that it would be nice, even if it goes through several more transmutations, if my name were to appear somewhere in the source code. Now Protocol and Intrigued have given me much more recognition than that. They have even left my Acme-Tek nameplate on it. I appreciate it, but that is way more than is necessary. I don’t think that I can be faulted too much for putting my nametag on it initially, but I don’t have any problem with somebody taking it off either. If somebody is smart enough to figure out how to make money with it, I say “more power to them”. I’m not looking for a share of the money, but it would be nice to know that my name appeared somewhere in the source code.

I’m using my little keyboard contribution as an example. I released that one free, with no strings. I don’t mean to change it. I’m just trying to illustrate my point.

I hope that my comments haven’t made me sound too selfish. I would like to see this work, so I’m trying to identify some of the ‘worst case’ scenarios, and trying to think about how they might best be avoided.

[Corey]

Hi Jim. Yes I agree rules, will be good in this case.

1) The problem is that our collaboration system needs to be based upon our forum user database or you really have no way of knowing who you are interacting with. This would be no problem if I had time to script something but I don't.

2) Yes I agree. I don't see any reason why we can't just go:

-- Welcome to Key Buddy
-- This project is a collaboration : www.indigorose.com/forums?2304
-- Original creator : Jim S. 12/14/2004 www.jims.com
-- Images and keycodes by Protocol : 12/16/2004 www.protocol.com
-- Humor and samples by Tigger : 12/18/2004 www.geocaching.com
-- Wisdom by Worm : 12/22/2004 www.worm.com
-- Enjoy!!!

Nothing wrong with that. Remember, the comments are only in the source. S'cool. Now as to the project itself, Check out the about screen in Adobe Photoshop sometime. :) I don't see any problem with listing developers in an about screen, it's a common practice.

I think it's important not to restrict projects to non-commercial. Let's say for example 4 people collaborate on a photo sharing application, there's no reason that one couldn't market that from their site and share with the others on a quarterly basis via paypal transfer or whatever. This would work well on getting developers to collaborate on developing plug-ins. For example, if there's a group of 3 who are good at VB, they could collaborate on a family of plug-ins (such as MIDI!!!) and we would be happy to add them to our add-ons database, etc.

Obviously one has to take a very zen approach to collaborating just as in other aspects of life, i.e. you have to trust a stranger. But that's the whole benefit of not taking this outside the forums, at least you *know* who you are dealing with to some extent with regulars. I can think of a list of 40 people in here who I would trust to reimburse me accordingly from their marketing of a collaborative plug-in (if you VB wizards ever need killer graphics for a commercial plug-in, I'd probably be able to help) including yourself Jim.

I think there's risks here but I also think there's some potential for good things to happen. I for one would do *anything* to get some new AMS plug-ins out so I'm looking at that as the big picture, although obviously this whole idea is mostly aimed at non-commercial .apt and .apz collaborations...

[JimS]

OK, I have an idea for a co-op project that is bigger than I am. I think that it is possible, and if done correctly could be fairly popular. It would be designed to help make it easy to add tests and quizzes to an AMS project. It would have a basic skeleton, to which additional modules could be designed and added. One module might be for adding multiple choice questions that use a radio button. One module might add multiple choice with a checkbox so that more than one answer can be selected. Another module could be for fill in the blank style questions. A module would consist of some page code, and some functions.

The underlying logic, or skeleton, might use an INI file(s) to handle customization. An additional ‘wizard’ application might be built to help with creating the proper INI file.

In this way, a developer who wanted to add a quiz to their project would tell the wizard that the quiz should be 10 questions long, the first five multiple choice, and the remainder fill in the blank, it would then spit out the appropriate INI file. The developer would include the skeleton logic, and the necessary modules, and the quiz logic, would essentially be done for them. Of course, they will need to adjust the look and feel to tailor it for their project, but the lion’s share of the logic would be in place.

At the moment, I don’t really have any need for this type of thing, but it is something that seems to be asked for with some regularity. I had been thinking some about trying to create this on my own, but feel it might be a little too complex to create by myself, only to give away. If the work could be shared among a few of us, it would probably have a higher chance of getting finished. If anyone is interested in working on this, has any comments, or a better way to do it, post here at the forum, I’d like to discuss it with you.

[Corey]

It's a very good idea. Hey now I'm thinking, what about starting a Yahoo briefcase for this, or a Google group. They have built in tools for user based sharing, messaging, etc. Any thoughts?

WOW. I just did a search for "collaborate" at http://sourceforge.net. Tons of great stuff. I'm checking through it now...

[JimS]

Great idea about not limiting this to non-commercial projects. I hadn’t even thought of that. If this could be the impetus to create a collaboration between your artistic skills, Worm’s programming skills, and Protocol’s music skills that resulted in a commercial plug-in, better or quicker than what any of you could produce on your own, that would be a good thing, a very good thing.

I believe that we are all lifted by an increase in the number of add-ons that are available.

Yes, Source Forge is a gem. :yes Your Google and Yahoo ideas are pretty good too.

I do have another thought on this. I think that it is important to differentiate this from Intrigue’s site www.amsuser.com
If this is just about sharing free code for AMS, I think the existing forums, and Intrigue’s site has that about covered.

I’m not sure how it should be worded to reflect the difference. If it is restricted to cooperative projects, my little ‘Key Buddy’ project couldn’t have been included until I talked someone into adding something to it. Maybe the Key Buddy project doesn’t really belong there?

Really Corey, I’m not trying to make this difficult, just passing on my 2 cents. It will be nice to hear the ideas and opinions from the other members. It shall be interesting to see where this leads.

[Corey]

I definitely appreciate everything you are adding. Yes it will be interesting. Let's see what gets added to this thread and I'll go through the stuff at Sourceforge (anyone else checking it out please let me know if you see anything good there) and then I'm sure we can come up with something cool. Don't get me wrong, I'm open to all ideas. I'm just speaking off the top of my head, but I'm not closing any doors. Just looking at it critically, as always. :)

[JimS]

If we can use this forum for trying to enlist others to help develop commercial applications, I’ll have a couple of different ideas to try to float.

I don’t want to convolute Protocol’s original idea. Maybe we are talking about two new areas. One for cooperative commercial projects, the other strictly for free exchange? I don’t know. It will be nice when other members chime in on this. It does sure seem to have possibilities.

What a great way to bring in the new year. :yes

[JimS]

??? I apologize Protocol & Intrigued, I didn’t mean to highjack and morph your ideas. I guess it was a slow night, so I went a little overboard and gave a dime worth of my ideas. I had hoped that several members might add their ideas, and we’d see what stuck.

I’m interested in learning more about your vision, and the direction you would like this to move in.

[Corey]

I'll make it a combo. Once I get some time I'll look at getting this going, this week was too busy... Soon. :)

[sue]

I'll make it a combo. Once I get some time I'll look at getting this going, this week was too busy... Soon. :)

Greetings!
It's been awhile since I posted on the forum but I may have a solution for this. My company will be launching a subscription service soon that is a total collaboration suite. The service still has a few sections under construction but I set up a pre-release demo for you. You can take a look and see if it accomplishes your objective at http://www.everywhereworkplace.com/login/login.asp?orgurl=indigorose . Use the word demo for both the username and password. The admin can set up more users and groups.

Corey, I tried PM'ing you without luck - but I set you up as the admin and if you email me at sue49203@yahoo.com I'll email you the admin login information.

If anyone has any questions or feedback - feel free to PM me here or email me at sue49203@yahoo.com .

I hope I didn't break any rules by posting this but I've been watching this thread for awhile and believe this is an easy to implement solution for what you're trying to accomplish.

Sue

[Corey]

Gee thanks for the kind offer, that's awesome. In our case we have to keep it 100% on our server though, that's one of the internal criteria I am obliged to adhere to. Preferably integrated into the forum somehow so that members don't have to manage more passwords, etc. plus that way people know who they are dealing with. Doesn't break any rules to post here about helpful services BTW, we certainly do wish your company full success. :)

Again, thanks so much, we really do appreciate such kind offers. :yes

[sue]

Gee thanks for the kind offer, that's awesome. In our case we have to keep it 100% on our server though, that's one of the internal criteria I am obliged to adhere to. Preferably integrated into the forum somehow so that members don't have to manage more passwords, etc. plus that way people know who they are dealing with. Doesn't break any rules to post here about helpful services BTW, we certainly do wish your company full success. :)

Again, thanks so much, we really do appreciate such kind offers. :yes

No problem .... I just thought that limited time was a current obstacle and this solution could get you "kick started". Thanks for the well wishes .... we designed the service because of issues that have been expressed here. You guys aren't the only ones facing the challenge of communicating and collaborating across geographic and language barriers! ;D

We'll be launching in a few weeks ... so if anyone here knows of groups with the same challenges ... let them know! ;D

Have a great weekend!! I really appreciate all the help, support and entertainment that the IR forums offer!!

Sue

[Corey]

You have a great weekend too! :)

[yosik]

Thanks for the idea. I think it would be great to widen the cooperation scope between us, beyond what is already existing on a very informal basis ( which, BTW, shows how much we are all willing to help without ulterior motives...).

As one of the first steps, I think we could/should make a list of who would be willing and able to participate and what are their expertise. Some of the fileds can be covered doubly and triply by some, but others can be unique ( I bet there are not a lot of people in the AMS forum who can develop in hebrew... right?).

If we want to make it easier on ourselves, one of the issues should be the capability to upload multiple files at a time and a visual browser for graphic elements. As to code sharing, being text based, it is relatively easy to organized it by category and add a search module.

Count me in!!!! All the way!

Yossi

p.s. What about this user get-together we spoke about months ago?

[Corey]

p.s. What about this user get-together we spoke about months ago?

Well, if you're ever in Calgary drop by and we'll go downtown at midnight on a Saturday and try to outrun angry cowboys on our skateboards. :yes

[yosik]

haha Corey,
I may take you up on your offer...
But seriously, I do think that a well organized seminar (maybe prior to a next generation announcement), incl.
workshops,
how-to's
trends
project presentations
AMS and Flash
AMS and interactive video
Screen design
AMS and Photoshop
etc....
Could be a BOMB!
And, of course, actually getting together, exchanging ideas and contacts etc.. would be a BONUS.
I am aware of the logistics problems (time, organization, expenses...) but I think it would be VERY beneficiary to ALL, IR and us the users, both.

Yossi

[Corey]

Yes it's a good idea. I'm planning on doing some local stuff like that once we get some more business cards done. It's tricky to assert your credibility without a card...

We have a place here called Alberta College of Art and Design where I know I could convert lots of people, it's just a matter of showing them in person how they can essentially "build software in Photoshop". There's a few other choice spots like that here too. I could probably even muster up a decent user group from meetup.com or whatever. It's all a matter of establishing some sort of framework.

Anyhow I'm for sure going to be rolling out some stuff like that in Calgary at some point soon. I would't even mind hitting a trade show or two. That would give us a chance to use our secret weapon, Desmond's charm, to steamroll the soccer mom demographic.

Once I can get a decent video camera together I plan to post a whole bunch of videos related to AMS too. Should be fairly soon. That will be the key to really unlocking large amounts of traffic I think. Nothing people love more than videos showing something amazing and then explaining how to do it. I think once we can get some really good videos online that people wil start sending them to each other, etc. and interest will explode. The more TV-like the experience becomes, the more of the market we will reach.

2005 for me is all about one goal. Doubling the AutoPlay Media Studio user base. For sure part of that is going to be establishing some bricks n' mortar activity, thanks for the wake up call Yossi. :)

It reminds me a bit of a junior high dance where all the boys line up on one side, and all the girls on the other side. Someone has to make the first move. May as well be me I guess...

[yosik]

Good to hear that, Corey.
If you think of something I could help with, I am willing to pitch in (and I won't hesitate to say "no", if it is over my head, so don't think twice about asking). I strongly feel that widening and deepening AMS user base is very important.

Working in Academy, I can see how receptive the students are to AMS. Limited public workshops in a professional environment, with the participation of other software developpers and/or trainers (TotalTraining?) could be VERY successful indeed.

Yossi

[Corey]

Yes I agree. I have yet to sit down with anyone who didn't immediately want to run out and buy it. As you know my main skill is Photoshop, so it's a breeze to sit down with someone and get them going "wow" with that, and then once I take it from there into AMS their jaws just drop open. So I definitely agree with you the key to really converting people lies in showing them firsthand what is possible.

Besides, it's a much more human approach and I like that. It's astounding to me how many people accelerate development radically once given just a tiny amount of seasoned guidance. I'm that way myself. I could spend 4 years "not getting" something on my guitar and then suddenly something my guitar teacher friend says turns it around and I get it in a week. A lot of designers don't realize what they are capable of but once you start to help them outline a path to things they really take off on their own...

Video is the key to everything. I've been saying it since 1954. Yes that's right, I predicted it more than a dozen years prior to my own birth. *That's* how sure I am. But seriously The Total Training metaphor is perfect for some of what I have planned Yossi. You hit the nail on the head, that'll really explode interest in a HUGE way. I've even discussed that with topdog at IR BTW, and was met with no objections to my plans. So it's just a matter of me getting it together for a GL-2.

Should be soon... I'll definitely be integrating with you ona few things Yossi, don't worry I'm not shy to ask. :)

[yosik]

Video is the key to everything. I've been saying it since 1954. Yes that's right, I predicted it more than a dozen years prior to my own birth. *That's* how sure I am.

So now we all know how old you are, Corey...... ;)
Explain, pls, what do you want the camera for (and the GL-2 is a GOOD choice..)?

Yossi

[Corey]

A variety of things. Developer interviews, webinars, content presentations, Total Training style videos, promotional stuff, footage from groups/presentations, how-to materials, entertaining things such as general AMS trickery, product tours, general interest stuff, etc. You know, just the usual video type stuff. Also as another competitive advantage for Indigo Rose. Installshield for example offers a wide range of webinars on their site, so it's important for us to at least meet that level of service eventually if not surpass it. We have a very deep respect for Installshield despite being in direct competition with them in many respects, and I trust that their level of dedication to providing webinars represents some tangible value, i.e. they wouldn't be doing it if it didn't work.

The big one for me will be product tours too. For some reason screen capture material doesn't get people excited, and the Flash we did for setupfactory.com for example takes forever to create. Video is the perfect solution. If you have a proper lit space you can grab a suit/tie and cut an awesome little TV-style sit down presentation in a single day which will get vastly better consumer response than the Flash. That literally saves us $1,000+ per product tour and increases our response exponentially. No one ignores a well delivered video but most people skip Flash nowadays. People also tend to send each other video links, you know how fast good clips propogate on the internet. I mean I'm not going to jump off a garage roof to rack up the page views, but suffice to say there's just no substitute for good video.

I mean even for one tiny example imagine a short video (combination screen/camera) in the AMS section where we sit down together and quickly create something amazing looking (such as the Blue Gel MP3 player) in Photoshop and then convert that into a fully functional application in AutoPlay Media Studio with a few clicks. I guarantee you that video will trigger more trial downloads of AMS than any Flash movie, screencap video, web page, brochure, or phone call ever could... Video is a very special medium which carries a very special level of power when done right. It personalizes the experience.

For me product tours is the big one BTW. These Flash movies kill me. I usually end up going 12-14 hours per day because I can't accept the idea of spending 3 weeks on a Flash movie. If you take a look at the Flash on setupfactory.com again you can just imagine how much work went into doing that from scratch. It would have been a zillion times easier to just shoot a short video demo and use that instead. And with a few flashy edits it would have gotten a vastly stronger user response and view rate. The main thing is to make sure the production quality is decent and the delivery is seamless.

I also have a vision for something fairly cohesive in addition to this, i.e. a casual online video ezine for designers maybe or something very small like that. The bottom line is that video is a reliable venue for IR's ideas and energy and that will help us reach a whole new range of people. For me personally it's just another compelling design medium which I've been wishing to delve into for years.

Eric says the GL-2 is the way to go in the beginning, I figure I'll be pretty happy with it. Other than his "spicy donut stew" recipe, Eric has never steered me wrong:

http://www.vistek.ca/details/detail_over.asp?eCode=207652&TYPE=&Specs=N&Box=N

The price is respectable in relation to the quality too.

[eric_darling]

Heee! Spicy donut stew.... It's not often that a three word search for images on Google turns up
*nothing* (http://images.google.com/images?q=spicy%20donut%20stew&hl=en&lr=&sa=N&tab=wi) at all. :D

[yosik]

I can't wait, Corey. I do agree that video goes a loooong way. Delivery is another issue. Download vs streaming. Format too, Quicktime/wmv/flv?

As to the ezine...you got e hooked. MAybe you can have a multi broadcast from various user slocation with topics discussion and exchange.

As to the GL-2, a point to mention. I have encountered a few Canon cameras which were problematic as far as IEEE 1394 (firewire) recognition. Computer could not recognise the camera. I would suggest that, when the time comes, you check that your camera can be seen and controlled by your computer.

Yossi

[Corey]

Good tip, I'll keep that in mind. I was thinking about delivering the video using .wmv, it seems to be a very good way to stream...

[eric_darling]

Corey, since you're a Flash guru, I think you might like what FLV can do for you on the streaming side of things. Very few people are using it to its full potential yet, mostly because great video pros and great flash pros rarely cross paths. But I am here to tell you it's something else.

Of course, you need Flash MX 2004 Pro to get it going right, but it's very easy to implement FLVs into your project and stream them from an ordinary server as you would with WMV or QT. There's even a built-in media player component in the Flash Pro bundle that can load in the FLVs for you.

Think about it - streaming video right inside your Flash interface. Slick.

[Corey]

Yeah I've monkeyed with it, we have Flash MX 2004 Pro. I agree with you, this is definitely a technology with a HUGE future, particularly in the fine art of online marketing for products over $250. And at the risk of misquoting Hulk Hogan, I promise you IR will be in it to win it.

I like it. Although we have to wait until Flash player 8 comes out to really get woozy with the possibilties. So hold your wooze. Flash player 8 will have full support for video alpha. GARF!

I mean, what a great time to be alive, eh? Dis da bomb diggity yo. Or as Yossi would say, "this could be a bomb". :) :yes

P.S. No guru am I. I prefer to think of myself as an angry onlooker...

[yosik]

Corey and Eric,
As much as the potential for FLV is great and the fact that you can have it integrated into a Flash environment (and the BEST with the forthcoming Alpha support...), I still find there are a few advantages working with wmv:
1. you can digitize in multiple bitrate in one pass
2. you can have a nice video archive at VERY good quality (up to Standard broadcast and even HD resolution).
3. you can easily integrate the wmv (without re-encoding it) into a package like Microsoft producer.
4. As it is a video file, putting it as a video object in AMS you can control it (or respond to it) better than a swf object.

My 2c worth...

Yossi

[Corey]

The thing about FLV is the functionality. So yes, for playing straight video clips .wmv is excellent, but for example if you wished to integrate your video into a completely interactive online learning system there are definitely certain benefits to Flash and FLV.

I think both have their place in a successful system. I will use .wmv for the bulk of web delivered video clips and FLV for using the video within systems. I mean we're talking about achieving things which have never been achieved before here, so it's all learn-as-you-go anyhow. :)

[Brett]

As far as the online collaboration component goes, what about using the open source tool GForge (http://gforge.org)? This basically allows you to setup your own SourceForge. I know that the Lua community used it to setup LuaForge (http://http://luaforge.net). This way there are documents, notes and source code control for every public project. If we do get this going I have some decent ideas for products that we could collaborate on.

[Corey]

Feel free to set it up Brett, sounds good to me.

[Intrigued]

http://luaforge.net/

Pretty cool!



:yes