Re: [Demexp-dev] Current status of development

[David MENTRE]

Hello,

David MENTRE <address@hidden> writes:

> Regarding planned features for 0.8 release[1], the remaining parts are:
>
>  - French translation of GTK client (easy);
>
>  - Improvement of web interface (a big task), with most notably the
>    ability to save questions seen and voted for each user and the
>    ability to display a tag hierarchy;
>
>  - Translation of web interface in French (not very difficult but very
>    boring because WDialog does not currently support translation
>    catalogs).
>
> As you have probably noticed, ;) I'm looking in more details at the web
> technology, in order to see how I could implement the needed features of
> the web interface. As the web has a lot of different technologies (CSS,
> HTML, Javascript), this is not an easy task (but I hope to learn a few
> things along the way).

Ok, I've read some more about CSS 2. I'm wondering if digging into
Javascript is that necessary, especially considering that our first
interface should be accessible to any kind of browser, without too much
eye candy (well, this is my own position ;).

The current web interface is using WDialog[1], an OCaml framework for
web interfaces. Currently, it is used as a simple CGI script but I
should shortly use it as FastCGI, in order to improve performances. 

For those willing to help, here are most important things to do:

 - implement a way to keep permanently voted and seen question for each
   user (much like the GTK client is keeping this information in
   ~/.demexp/ directory). I have not many ideas how to implement
   that. The marcos machine has a MySQL server available, but I'm
   completely new to those SQL things[2]. Otherwise, we could also use
   BerkeleyDB interface, or just a simple file;

 - implement a usable interface to display and navigate into the simple
   hierarchy of tags. How to have an interface that can be used on any
   kind of browser, for all users (blind people, ...)? Félix has already
   coded some CSS improvements[3]. But beyond HTML/CSS presentation, we
   need to define how the application is implemented, e.g. how to
   communicate between the browser and the CGI (set of WDialog dialogs?
   Using a single URL with URI parameters (?q_id=1234) to a single
   dialog?). 

Any suggestion/advice/code is welcome. ;)

Best wishes,
d.


Footnotes: 
[1]  http://wdialog.sourceforge.net/

[2]  Anybody knows a good book on MySQL?

[3]  By the way, Félix, could you post it on address@hidden

-- 
pub  1024D/A3AD7A2A 2004-10-03 David MENTRE <address@hidden>
 5996 CC46 4612 9CA4 3562  D7AC 6C67 9E96 A3AD 7A2A