Which project shall we start ?

[AsLan^]

Okay, so quite a few people are interested in an applenova project but what should it be ?

Here are the idea's from the other thread, you can vote on multiple items and the poll will expire on monday.

I think that whatever the popular result of this poll turns out to be, we (those who are interested) should put our heads togethor and start it moving in the right direction :)

[rollercoaster375]

Spider Solitaire, easy. There isn't any good, free, spider solitaire on OS X.

Of course, I wouldn't be able to help with that, as I would with a CMS.

[drewprops]

I voted widget because it's something that would be potentially small enough to accomplish in a finite period of time and would be very Apple-y and could potentially be something very AppleNova-ish if we did in fact make something that related to this site.

I voted Murbidget because Murray once gave me pr0n and it was really good pr0n. Tasteful, you know.

[scratt]

Some kind of Solitaire... But in the theme of 'Think Different'. Perhaps some kind of shape driven pattern game...

What we really want to produce is something totally new that will be a very popular OS X 'time wasting' game... Something we can brand as an AppleNova product and put out there to show everyone who we are..

Heck, it could even have a little RSS style feed which picks up replies to the threads you are subscribed to and displays them at the bottom of the app.....

[spotcatbug]

What about a solitaire widget? Does that already exist? It seems like it would probably already exist.

[faramirtook]

I have a question:

How will this app be licensed? Will it be free/open source? GPL? BSD? Or will it be closed?

[BlueRabbit]

What about a solitaire widget? Does that already exist? It seems like it would probably already exist.
Well, here's (http://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/games/mondosolitaire.html) one Solitaire widget, and I know I've seen others. I don't think we should do any sort of card game, since there are already a ton of those floating around the Internet. Instead, it should be something really cool and addictive - as scratt said, "Think Different."

[Batman]

<wishfull thinking>A crossplatform KHTML based browser?</wishfull thinking>

[AsLan^]

I have a question:

How will this app be licensed? Will it be free/open source? GPL? BSD? Or will it be closed?

That would be up to the people developing the application, I personally favor GPL/BSD Licensed FOSS.

Additionally, I assume the administrators of applenova would have some say in it before endorsing it with the applenova name :)

[scratt]

For my vote: I think anything like this should definitely be Open Source.

[chucker]

<wishfull thinking>A crossplatform KHTML based browser?</wishfull thinking>

Nokia's Gtk+ WebCore?

[ShadowOfGed]

Well, as of now, it appears that "Content Management System" and "Card game" are tied at 40% each.

I cast my vote for CMS, because a card game isn't very useful; it's fun and gimmicky, and I'm sure it has been done a zillion times. There are lots of content management systems too, but after having toyed around with one or two, I personally find them to be a little lacking in the "elegant design" department, less than intuitive, and altogether clunky.

I really want the chance to help design and later code a clean, manageable CMS with all the stops pulled out; most CMSes cover things like blogging pretty well, but it's usually difficult to cleanly integrate an image gallery, forums, and other traditionally standalone components.

I like consistency, and I think we probably have the talent here to focus on design first, and code second. I think a lot of OSS/community projects suffer from coding without first designing. Such is the hacker nature, write up little pieces of code that eventually evolve into something bigger. I think our project, should it be a CMS, should spend a fair amount of time and effort on good clean architectural design, as well as good interface design. Once that's in place, then we code it together.

So if we end with a tie, I urge us to pick a CMS over a card game. Just my two cents. It'd be great to unify news, forums, users, image galleries, and more under one visual and functional umbrella, and I'd expect no less of this community.

We are, after all, brought here by a strong interest in Apple. :D

[scratt]

I like the idea of a CMS, however, I think a team should cut it's teeth on something a little less complicated, and with a few less pitfalls first. Or this project may just end up being an excercise that never gets completed...

If there is a draw I would suggest a quick 'Think Different' puzzle game (not a solitaire copy) to get us warmed up and then the CMS as a team project once that is completed....

[drewprops]

scratt's worry that "or this project may just end up being an exercise that never gets completed" is too true.

I'm in this thing for fun, I can't code toe-to-toe with any of you guys but I'm terribly interested in participating. Even without the hard code experience I can chart out the mental math of what it takes to build a CMS, let alone a Browser; just turn your attention to the groups who are already tackling those types of projects and look at how long they've been doing it and how many people they have on their teams and how unfinished they continue to be. As I'm getting ready to begin learning the CMS WordPress I think that I'll have even MORE doubts about how long this AppleNova project could take to complete (unless Gargoyle just needs some things dusted off his code before putting the final touches on the project, which would be cool).

Scratt's preaching it too.
A short project really isn't a bad thing, it's kind of like a shake-down cruise for a submarine... find out what rattles, what's not tied down. It's just to see how the team works together on something that will truly yield a result at the end of the session. Something manageable. Learn to swim before you try to cross the channel.

Once the team is really working I personally think it would be far cooler if you did something in the Apple style: creatively identify a problem area that may not have been addressed in the past instead of doing a rehash of something we've all seen before.

Something that is inherently "Mac", takes advantage of the technology and the mindset.

Cart, meet horse. :p

[scratt]

Thanks drewprops, very concisely put...

Off on a slight tangent here, as I am not suggesting this as the project for us to do is this...

A project I personally would love to see (and I repeat I am not suggesting this for this project) it an extension to the synergy patch that enables one mouse to control two or more machines.. I use it all the time as I prefer to sit at (and work at) my laptop, but still harness the power of my G5.

On a daily basis my G5 is normally crunching stuff like videos and compiling my own projects whilst I answer emails and do other stuff on my laptop...

At the moment synergy only allows text clipboard portability between machines, and obviously when you slide a window off the screen on the laptop it does not appear on the G5. Nor can you drap and drop....

I think a Mac program that allowed you to seemlessly work across desktops from one machine with one mouse and keyboard would be a great extension, and a really cool open source project to give to the Mac community.

Plus a lot of the work is done already with the open source synergy project.

We have the wireless networking power to do something like this now.

I know it's limited appeal as there are not that many people out there who work on more than one machine at a time... But if anyone wants to colaborate on this one day. I'm in. If I had time I would do it now myself.. But I don't!!

[Mr Beardsley]

I totally agree with starting simple, so we can produce a final product. Another problem with a CMS is getting the dev environment all set up. A CMS involves a database server, web server, and webserver modules. A card game or other cocoa project just needs Xcode.

I'm torn about whether to invent a new puzzle type game, or clone an existing one. By cloning a game we already have the rules, and know how it is supposeed to work. This would simplify the design and testing phase of the project. On the other hand coming up with something new is also enticing. Decisions, decisions ... :)

[drewprops]

Even though I do currently have Mario parked inside of the Shadow Fortress I'm not really that much of a gamer. Maybe a game would be a good tool for the shakedown cruise, though it would be cool if the final product were more useful.

Here are some more ideas for the final app:



An amber alert widget
A sprightly enhancement to the Finder experience
An app that interviews you for ALT text for your web pages and stitches it into them for you (would be hard for anything created dynamically).
A widget for tracking details coming out of Stevenotes (requires somebody on the content-generation end end having a bitching server setup)
An app that figures out what model Mac you have and shows it to you in a graphical context with other Mac models, possibly listing Known Issues with your machine (could possible engender coordination with a site like MacFixit if such an app doesn't already exist or else use P2P to maintain clean records)
A peer-to-peer dating app with "hot or not" features that lets other people tag you.
A widget that works with de.li.cious
A six-degrees of Kevin Bacon widget that scrapes data off of imdb.com
An animated smiley GIF creator with plugins for props and animated actions. Libraries traded and created in open architecture like DOOM and other FPS game engines. (This one would be dedicated to Pscates)

[BlueRabbit]

An app that figures out what model Mac you have and shows it to you in a graphical context with other Mac models, possibly listing Known Issues with your machine (could possible engender coordination with a site like MacFixit if such an app doesn't already exist or else use P2P to maintain clean records)
That sounds a lot like Mactracker (http://www.mactracker.ca/), even down to the figuring out what Mac you have. However, it would be pretty interesting to see known issues with your/other Macs.

[drewprops]

If it were possible to share details of problems it could highlight trouble areas - data similar to Apple's own crash report, but would rely on people reporting their own problems. Maybe it's possible to grab the data from Apple's crash report and add it to the shared reports? Where would the data be stored? Locally on your machine then shared in a P2P manner? What of security? What of tainting of results? Who is arbiter? Do you mathematically shave off percentiles to accommodate bad reports? Is there a central reporting area for these problems?

Those are some of the challenges I see with that particular project.

[rollercoaster375]

I'm already working on a CMS, so Contributing to another would not be very easy for me.

Also, I'm asuming you're using PHP for the CMS.

[Jay]

I would also recommend a small program first and work up. I'll be glad to contribute what ever I can. At the moment I'm just a first year CS major so I have a lot of learning to do but I don't mind testing the software and attempting to troubleshoot stuff. I'll only mess with code if I'm confident I know what I'm doing.

[AsLan^]

Okay, so the poll is now closed and the majority of voters would like to work on a CMS.

Gargoyle, perhaps a new thread declaring the CMS as the applenova project ?

:)

[AsLan^]

I just finished chatting with Gargoyle and he is still willing to volunteer his CMS code for the applenova project.

That being said, he is still working on getting it ready to be worked on collaborativley.

When it's ready, there will be instructions for people to install it along with its dependancies so we can all take a look at it and perhaps do some testing.

Gargoyle tells me that the CMS is module driven which sounds very exciting because people will be able to work on specific modules that interest them.

Stay tuned... :)

[bassplayinMacFiend]

*subscribes*

[scratt]

*Sits back... Opens beer and muches on popcorn..*

*Thinks* 'I'll watch a while and see how this progresses!!'

[Enki]

Good luck! But I'm with Scratt. Groups need to crawl before they can walk, let alone run a potato sack marathon.

[spotcatbug]

Sorry, a CMS is much too large/complicated to be guaranteed some sort of a finish on a first-time, group project.

I'm waiting this one out, too. :o

Not that anybody will miss me. :D

Good luck! (sincerely)

[AsLan^]

Sorry, a CMS is much too large/complicated to be guaranteed some sort of a finish on a first-time, group project.I personally dont know anything about php, I'm hoping the modular nature of the CMS will abstract the overall complexity to something manageable where I might be able to pick up some php and contribute to the project too.

[Mr Beardsley]

Would anybody object, or consider it bad form if we started a second project for those who aren't big on PHP or the CMS idea? I don't want to step on any toes or cause any waves.

[rollercoaster375]

I personally dont know anything about php, I'm hoping the modular nature of the CMS will abstract the overall complexity to something manageable where I might be able to pick up some php and contribute to the project too.
PHP is wicked easy to pick up. Especially if you are into C or C++.

[Brad]

PHP is wicked easy to pick up. Especially if you are into C or C++.
...or for that matter Java (which he is).

Would anybody object, or consider it bad form if we started a second project for those who aren't big on PHP or the CMS idea?
No harm there! This is all a self-driven thing. :) If you want to do X, do X. If you want to do Y, do Y.

[ast3r3x]

...or for that matter Java (which he is).


No harm there! This is all a self-driven thing. :) If you want to do X, do X. If you want to do Y, do Y.
Personally I'm up for some Z.

[ShadowOfGed]

Personally I'm up for some Z.I believe Z was actually supposed to be a mathematically-based language such that programs could be mathematically proven to have no bugs. That's all I remember hearing about it though.

I assume you didn't mean that Z. ;)