Exploring the Unknown

SOC: Collaborative editing

2008-04-25T08:32:00.002+10:00

I'd like to welcome Gregory Haynes who will be working to bring collaborative editing to KDE this year. Collaborative editing consists of multiple people working on the same document at the same time and being able to see each others changes in real-time. Having this in KDE will be fantastic and a huge step forward in terms of what is possible when it comes to working with other people.

Greg is relatively new to the KDE community, but has already enough Qt related experience to make this happen. One thing that impressed with his application was his enthusiasm coupled with very good attention to detail and a clear plan of what to do. Personally I am very excited and can't wait to see the first results. I'm sure it will be just pure awesomeness.

KollabFrame - Concurrent Collaborative Content Creation

2008-01-26T07:05:00.000+10:00

KollabFrame - The vision

Imagine a world where computers are everywhere. A world where documents, images, videos, audio files and other content are available to be edited on any device in collaboration with others. Now imagine being able to do this concurrently. Share and remix. Brainstorm ideas. Write books. Role play. Take notes. Code. Create mind maps. Draw. Create music. All as part of a group that makes changes together in real time. This world is not too far from the future and making this happen is what KollabFrame is about.

KollabFrame is a new project that will attempt to pull together the various pieces of technology currently available or in planning and build a framework for collaborative content creation. This framework might end up as another pillar of KDE or as part of one of the existing ones. Where it ends up inside KDE however is not so important. What is important, as Aaron Seigo so aptly put it in his KDE 4.0 release event speech, is that it is about making this technology available to all KDE applications and cooperating with other projects outside KDE to achieve this.

Now that you know what it's about make sure check out the existing pages and join the mailing list if you are keen.

Concurrent collaborative editing research adventures

2007-10-01T20:04:00.000+10:00

After wading through way too many papers I am more motivated than ever to get this going. I really believe a cross platform (cross gui toolkit) collaborative editing library looks within reach.

If there would be an award for the best paper written on this topic it would have to be given to the guys who wrote ACE. If you check out their Report Evaluation Algorithm you will find a well presented overview of pretty much all algorithms ever invented in this area with a description of how they work, what features they support (e.g undo) and what their short comings are. If you are interested in the topic I urge you read at least the first two chapters to get up to speed and gain an understanding of the issues. A big "You Rock" to them for making this info available without having to go through ACM or similar pain.

I generally agree with the conclusion citing Jupiter and adOPTed as viable algorithms but disagree with the part were they exclude GOTO because of one of the proposed methods was not yet proven to work by someone else. Minor detail really. But it's not time for decision making yet, there is more to take into consideration.

Now it's off to start looking at actual software out there and see what might be usable. The projects that are on my list of potentials (in alphabetical order) are

gobby

infinote (svn only)

KDevelop

MateEdit (always mention your own work)

From a first glance it looks like there could be cooperation points with some of these projects but more on that later.

Development environment

2007-09-23T19:04:00.000+10:00

Finally got a working development set up for KDE4 again so porting of MateEdit can now start in earnest. It is back to the drawing board first though to get acquainted with all the new goodies kdelibs and friends before any serious porting can start. I am quite excited about getting into it and finding out what to expect with the shiny new 4.

Once that is out of the way I will have to start writing up some of the research results that have been accumulating here. After all it should be able to build on (or upon) a collaborative editing library to satisfy the needs of more than one application. Really can't wait to get going with this again, it has been a while.

Planning

2007-09-17T20:35:00.000+10:00

Of all the things I thought I might have to plan at some stage in my life, having a 6 month review session for a daughter certainly never was one of them. But as with all things surprises happen and in this case it's a very enjoyable one (the daughter bit not the planning). However thanks to the great staff working for DSQ today's planning session was pretty productive. It did involve measuring progress on special charts and applying a lot of good jugdement, but it sure is worth it when you consider the benefits of early intervention. It is amazing to see how much support there is out there for people with disabilities. Not to say things don't need improving but I am sure that things are at least moving in the right direction.

Qt Centre Programming Contest

2007-09-17T19:14:00.000+10:00

As Johan writes the Qt Centre Programming Contest is over. Congratulations to all the winners and a big thanks for enriching our free software eco system. There still seems to be a lot to do in regards to naming apps though. When I read the entry for QTractor I more imagined something to do with one of these.