Dashboard - very cool. A must see.

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Tim O'Reilly
Jul. 12, 2003 09:07 AM
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I was going to write more of a description of Dashboard here, but DJ Adams already did a great job: "The heart of dashboard is a matching and sorting engine that receives information (in the form of "cluepackets" - how evocative is that?) from frontend applications (like your IM and email clients) and asks the plugged-in backends to find stuff relevant to that information, which is then displayed in the sidebar-style window, designed to be glanced at rather than pored over. It's a lovely open architecture in that you can (build and) plug in whatever frontend or backend lumps of code you think of." DJ's blog is complete with lots of links.

Tim O'Reilly is the founder and CEO of O'Reilly Media, Inc., thought by many to be the best computer book publisher in the world, and an activist for open standards. O'Reilly Media also publishes online through the O'Reilly Network and hosts conferences on technology topics, including the O'Reilly Open Source Convention, the O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference, and the Web 2.0 Conference. Tim's blog, the O'Reilly Radar "watches the alpha geeks" to determine emerging technology trends, and serves as a platform for advocacy about issues of importance to the technical community. For everything Tim, see tim.oreilly.com.

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Showing messages 1 through 13 of 13.

Remembrance Agents
2003-07-12 13:56:11 anonymous2 [Reply | View]

This sounds like the remembrance agent program at http://www.remem.org/

There's a flaw in the implementation IMHO
2003-07-12 12:28:40 anonymous2 [Reply | View]

This is a really cool idea and the first time I've been exposed to it. However, I'm not sure how useful this would be for me given the lack of screen real estate on my iBook. The dashboard window would always have to be exposed, otherwise I'd miss the information. And if I have to go out of my way to look for the dashboard window amongst a cluster of application windows, then it disrupts my workflow. It needs to work like the new version of Proteus instant messenger on Mac OS X. When you get an IM from someone you are not already chatting with, a translucent window unveils itself at the top of the screen with the instant message. You can easily choose to ignore it, and just as easily choose not to. I'm a bit of a programmer myself, I may just hack something up on OS X that's compatible with this system.

There's a flaw in the implementation IMHO
2003-07-13 14:28:02 anonymous2 [Reply | View]

The UI that you see in the screenshots, and that you may have seen in our demo, is pretty much just a placeholder. I think that we'll have to iterate several times on the interface before we start to get close to the right UI.

Things to consider: asynchronous notification of matches; matches-on-demand; hover over 'match compartments' for more information, and so on.

Hopefully in two or three weeks we'll be far enough along to start focusing on the UI; I think that's a rich area of mainly greenfield.

There's a flaw in the implementation IMHO
2003-07-16 08:16:40 anonymous2 [Reply | View]

I'm the anonymous poster from above. I'm looking forward to seeing what you guys come up with. I'm seriously contemplating trying to get a Mac OS X UI going with your dashboard software too. I think it's important that any dashboard UI ports flaunt the UI niceties of the platform they reside on. The only thing holding me back is I think it may be quite a big undertaking as opposed to a straight port (i.e. because of the necessity for Mac OS X versions of plugins and such). I suppose you'll hear from me if I actually get started on the thing:-)

There's a flaw in the implementation IMHO
2003-07-20 04:29:33 anonymous2 [Reply | View]

That would be a large undertaking. Pretty much all the plugins are for Linux/UNIX specific apps. Sure, you can run them on MacOS, just as you can on Windows. It doesn't mean many people do.

There's a flaw in the implementation IMHO
2003-07-20 09:24:00 Tim O'Reilly [Reply | View]

The hope, of course, is for an analogous set of instrumentation plug-ins for Mac OS X applications.

What it suggests to me, of course, is that all applications, whether open or closed source, ought to have an extensibility API that specifically supports instrumentation to allow systems like Dashboard. (FWIW, Macromedia's Central explores some similar concepts in inter-application communication; unfortunately, it supports only Flash-based applications.)

There's a flaw in the implementation IMHO
2003-07-20 14:58:29 rascasse [Reply | View]

I'm the anonymous poster from above and thought I'd register this time! I've got a big smile on my face because after a week of mulling over the problem of getting this ported to OS X, I think I've come up with a great solution to some of the obstacles. Now, I just have to code up a prototype and take it from there. The approach actually diverges greatly from Dashboad's but the effect should be the same. Anyways, talk is cheap so I'll be quiet until I have something coded up.

There's a flaw in the implementation IMHO
2003-07-28 09:25:57 anonymous2 [Reply | View]

hi, i hope you (rascasse ) still read the text... bascially i wonder wether you might be interested in collaborating with others... if so, just contact me at j.u at gmx dot net
...

Update
2003-08-04 18:10:06 rascasse [Reply | View]

I've taken note of your e-mail address. For the time being, I'm going to do this alone until there is a clear direction for my program which is quite well under way. The past week I've been working past some minor technical hiccups in my design but I'm quite happy with my slightly differing approach to accomplishing the dashboard functionality. The interesting thing so far is I haven't even checked out dashboard first hand. I suppose I should get around to doing that at some point!

Mac OS X (was: There's a flaw in the implementation IMHO)
2003-07-28 07:32:19 germuska [Reply | View]

Awesome! I've been reading Edd's blog and trying to figure out how to get a piece of that stuff. It looks like any kind of .NET for OS X is still quite a ways away, but the concept of Dashboard is way more important than the implementation.

How will we know when you've got something to show? Have a "coming soon" page or something?

Mac OS X (was: There's a flaw in the implementation IMHO)
2003-08-06 10:20:14 anonymous2 [Reply | View]

Apparently Portable.net (http://www.southern-storm.com.au/portable_net.html) runs on .Net.

It certainly doesn't look like a OSX version of Mono is going to be available until later in the year.

Update (continued)
2003-08-04 18:11:48 rascasse [Reply | View]

I'll post back here when I have something to demo. This is my first significant project using Objective-C and Cocoa. The rapidity of development is actually stunning. I could have something to show off in as little as 3 weeks. Check back by then;-)

Update (continued)
2003-12-28 09:13:53 anonymous2 [Reply | View]

I've been working a bit on Dashboard this summer, but since, I've bought a powerbook.
Hence I'll be glad to participate to a similar project on osX.

If you could keep me aware of what you do at: mortimer dot pa at urbanet dot ch. I'll be glad to help.

Thank you.

Showing messages 1 through 13 of 13.

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