Lynnwood Brown's Working Notes

I created this page as an on-line notebook for my thoughts related to discussions on TWiki.org. I envision storing misc notes and links for later reference as well as drafting contributions before actually posting them in the actual discussion.

Quick notes & brainstorms

This is for quickly capturing a brainstorm or noting something to come back to.

Does PatternSkin include css tags that could be used for larger-font introduction paragraph?

-- LynnwoodBrown - 18 Oct 2004

TWikiRoadMap

• Examples: Chandler - Product Roadmap, Mozilla roadmap, Subversion Roadmap
• WordNet definition of "road map"
• Interesting/relevant? Wiki:LivingDesignDiagram

Enhancing Changes

I recently posted a note in AddCheckInComment about my frustration with WebChanges. After reading a bit more from prior discussions on this matter, I have a itch to try and come up with a proposal for improving it. I'm also thinking it might be an opportunity to try out some different discussion facilitation ideas (see below).

Some relevant topics:

• AboutWebChanges
• MakeLinkChangesSilent
• WebChangesEnhancementRequest - may consider re-cycling this topic for this discussion since the content there is pretty modest.
• DiffRawRendering
• ChangesTopics
• MyRecentChanges - Not directly related but interesting.

Initial thoughts:

• Clearly (and narrowly) define the scope of the enhancements I'm seeking. My initial thought here is that the intent is to design a better WebChanges that provides the most information about actual, significant changes to topics, perhaps with linking to most recent content.
• List different ideas that have been mentioned that are relevant and suggest some priority. Perhaps do a poll about what people think would be most useful. Perhaps also rank in terms of ease/difficulty in implementing.

Wiki facilitation

Related topics outlining my ideas:

• WikiFacilitation
• http://skyloom.com/Lynnwood/WikiFacilitation

Dot Voting

In association with WikiFacilitation, I am interested in exploring how "dot voting" process for prioritizing a list could be implemented in TWiki.

Some links describing process:

• Dotmocracy
• Voting With Dots
• Group Brainstorming: Dot Voting with a Difference

WebNotify Improvements

I've experienced inconsistent results for the layout of emails I receive from WebNotify. Often times the html layout is completely screwy. Also I'd like to be able to use different layouts for different purposes. So these are my working notes for both trouble shooting and possible enhancements.

Some relevant links:

• MailNotifyInPlainTextFormat
• MailNotificationNeedsToBeSeparatelySkinnable
• RemoveWebNotifyTopicBodyHack

My ideal wiki

I've been meaning to develop my wish list for my ideal wiki.

Relevant links:

• Wiki:TopTenWikiEngines
• Wiki:InnovativeWikiFeatures
• Wikipedia:Wiki_software
• http://tavi.sourceforge.net/WikiEngines/ComparingWikis

Annotation options

It recently occurred to me that it would useful to have some better annotation options in TWiki for doing two things:

• Footnotes - providing additional information or referencing other info.
• Commentting in discussions - adding comments on another person's comments without breaking up flow of their comments.

Some initial ideas for what I'd like to see:

• Simple and quick formatting of a annotation.
• Perhaps a small icon to mark the reference point. Perhaps also have different icons for different types of annotations.
• two-way links between the annotation mark and annotation content to allow quick jumping back and forth.

Some relevant topics:

• ToolTipPlugin
• HowToDiscussAndSign
• BulletDiscussion
• NotePlugin
• BibliographyPlugin & EmbedBibPlugin - these are relevant but are overkill for what I'm wanting. Could they be used in simplified or modified form to do what I want?

Tagging system

These are some notes on possible implementation of tagging systems such as deiscussed in FolksonomiesClassification.

• See irc discussion starting here.
• First thought on my ideal: to have mechanism to create a personal tag list and apply it to topics (or specific sections of topics) while also have ability to see global list of tags (created by everyone).
• See also Michael's Systems for filing, content tagging, directories as tags. which makes connections between tagging and directory structures which makes a lot of sense to me.

Pattern Skin modifications

• WarmPatternSkin

Integrating external appls into TWiki

• CallingScriptsFromTopics
• HowToExecuteAScript
• BackupScripts

Dynamic Data Sets

Moved my initial notes to DynamicDataSets.

MetaData topics: MetaDataDefinition, MetaDataStorage, MetadataSucks, MakingMetaDataMoreWikiData, TWikiWhatWillYouBeWhenYouGrowUp, TWikiWhatWillYouBeWhenYouGrowUpDiscussion

Other related topics: DynamicTWikiFormOptionDefinitions, DynamicFormOptionDefinitions, HandleCommonTagsInFormDef,

TWiki Newsletter

Moved my notes to TWikiNewsletter. -- LB - 14 Jul 2005

Intrinsic Application

"Intrinsic application" is a phrase I've come up with to try to describe a possible feature of TWiki that I think has huge potential. The best working example of what I'm talking about and the original inspiration for this idea, is ActionTrackerPlugin. Let me try to explain what I mean.

Most applications are what I could describe as "extrinsic applications," by which I mean they exist distinct and separate from other applications. For example, envision a typical (simple) project management application that tracks actions. It's architecture and interface is entirely designed around it's defined function (naturally). Now, consider how that is different from ActionTrackerPlugin. ATP doesn't exist as an application outside of TWiki. It doesn't have a separate data structure or interface. It is completed distributed and intrinsic to TWiki. The "application" only exist in as it is called upon (by searches) in TWiki.

Smart Data Interface

I'm very interested in extending the interface used in ActionTrackerPlugin to other uses. What I'm referring to is the way that, after defining an action, one can open up an expanded view of the data related to that action in a separate window. I think one could use a similar interface for:

• Events
• Actions (To dos)
• People
• Links (to external sites)
• Attachments
• Projects?

Quick brainstorming on this:

• Have the indicator of smart data be less conspicuous so it can be displayed in-line, perhaps using small icons following the linked phrase. Maybe I'll create a mockup of this.
• Display extended info (a la tool tips) when you hover curser over icon.
• Clicking on icon opens up new window with more extended info and link to edit.

Options to hide/show data layers:

• Show/Hide Layers
• Using keys to display data layers: Javascript events - keys
• Updated Show/Hide script
• Showing & Hiding Layers Dynamically

Single sign-on

Create a "single sign-on" (SSO) solution for hosted TWiki sites. Figure a way to share TWiki authentication across several programs. Related topics & links:

• TWikiAuthenticationDev
• TransparentAuthentication
• Build and implement a single sign-on solution

TWiki Outliner

I have always valued outlining programs and am curious how TWiki could incorporate some outlining capabilities. Some possible application of outlining with TWiki:

• Organizing long topics.
• Organizing long, hierarchical lists.
• Navigating topic trees.
• Displaying externally generated OPML outlines.

Related topics on TWiki.org:

Possible external links of interest:

• Three Topics on the Future of Outlining
• webOutliner
• Wikipedia:OPML - Outline Processor Markup Language (OPML) is an XML format for outlines
• Joust - "The Outline Navigation System in JavaScript"
• Wiki And Outlining - Another persons thoughts about integrating wikis and outlining.
• OPML and XSLT

MultipleInstallationsUsingSingleTWikiGuts

• See notes on promising approach at http://twiki.org/cgi-bin/rdiff/Codev/TWikiOnDebian?rev1=1.91&rev2=1.90
• Related topics: SharingInstallFilesBetweenSites, DataAndCodeSeparation, BetterVirtualHostSupport, CommonFrontEndCgiScript and SeparateSiteSpecificTWikiConfiguration? .

Applying a persistent skin to a window

I originally posted HowToApplyPersistentSkinInWindow asking about how to do this but got no response. Just found this javascript approach to managing pop-up windows that might do the trick: Unobtrusive Popup Windows.

Toggle show/hide of an element (like TOC)

• See SamHaslerLeftBar for example use of js.

Feel free to comment

If you happen to stumble across my working notes here, feel free to comment.