[ba-unrev-talk] [Fwd: The future of web publishing?]
OH yeah... (01)
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Subject: The future of web publishing? (02)
** Xerox PARC App Simplifies Web Editing (03)
Web-based communities can provide a great venue for
collaboration--but there's nothing great about having a backlog
of pages for one person to update. Enter Sparrow Web, a Java-
based program from Xerox Palo Alto Research Center that's in
beta testing. It's designed to simplify, and democratize, Web-
based collaboration by allowing all members of a designated
group to edit Web pages even if they lack HTML skills. (04)
Sparrow Web's "secret weapon" is a little black triangle, says
Eric Bier, PARC principal scientist. The icon is used to
indicate which Web-page sections are editable. When users click
on the black triangle, a dialog box appears, allowing them to
edit a paragraph of text, a table of figures, or other
individual elements of a page. The program's templates take
care of the formatting, so no worries about whether text should
be bold or indented. And unlike other Web-editing applications,
Sparrow Web (the beta version is available for download at
alphaave.com) makes it possible to edit dynamic pages, not just
large text blocks. (05)
PARC's hardware support group has been using Sparrow Web
internally to track system maintenance since its initial
creation in '96. But this year, Sparrow Web beta testing began
in earnest. Search engine Google Inc. began using it in July
for internal project management, and three school districts in
California are taking it for a test drive. At Stanford
University, a graduate engineering class that's working on
engineering projects for several large auto manufacturers is
using it for Web collaboration with team members located
overseas. (06)
David Cannon, a Stanford mechanical engineering graduate
student and class coach who led the initial assessment of
Sparrow Web in September, liked its ease of use. "We were able
to get the initial pages up in a few days," says Cannon.
Sparrow Web isn't backed by a database, which simplified the
set up. "I've worked with database-backed sites before, and
they require significant upfront planning," he says. Now,
students are using Web pages more frequently to post project
updates, instead of relying on E-mail communication. For
Stanford, it was important to have editable Web pages that were
more than big text blocks--especially since they're also viewed
by project sponsors like Ford Motor Co. and Toyota. "We get
quite a bit of money from sponsor companies," Cannon says. "We
want to show good results." - Sandra Swanson (07)
Regards,
Dwight (08)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dwight Lucky
IT Support (formerly WWAS-GTS-AIM) (09)
Sun Microsystems, Inc.
901 San Antonio Road, UNWK 14-201
Palo Alto, CA 94303-4900 (010)
Tel: 510.574.8062 (x38062) Fax: 510.574.8121
dwight.lucky@sun.com
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