Re: [Columba-devel] calendar/chat prototypes and future directions

[Celso P. <cp...@yi...>]

On Tue, 2006-02-21 at 15:36 +0100, Frederik Dietz wrote:

> Here are my thoughts on this:
> 1. I don't like the term "groupware". I'd rather go with something like
> collaboration suite or PIM. Its a tool which lets people collaborate.

PIM is also bad in my opinion since PIM suites don't manage anything on
their own. So collaboration is all good.

> 
> 2. I'd like to see calendar as the most important first. I've added chat
> because its very easy and adds a more interactive nature to Columba.

Actually integrating Chat with the rest of Columba could be a good thing
if Chat is supported by P2P (I think JINI(?) fits the role). It could be
great to have a contact list with the guys on my team that are also
running Columba and having the conversations logged in email-like form.
I haven't checked GTalk integration with GMail but I guess this is what
they're shooting for and it seems really nice to me.

The main point here is to have contacts discovered. Yet, I must admit I
can't see how this could work on the internet. But on a corporate LAN
this is good.

(skipping 3.)

> 4. I'm not for investing much time in the framework. We should keep things
> as simple as possible. For example, the plugin framework should only be
> used to do little things. It should never become a sophisticated framework
> as seen in Eclipse. Additionally, we should try to stick to basic
> principles, so new developers can join us easily. For example, history has
> proven that its usually not a good idea to add an extra abstraction layer
> on top of Swing.

We should thrive to integrate all the GUI pieces. The core seems pretty
solid so my opinion is that there is no real need to re-factor it but I
feel the GUI needs a make-over. Maybe it's possible to take advantage of
the Flexdock framework.


I'll sit down one of these days and try to come up with some mockups and
if I get to do it I'll share them with you.

Cheers,
Celso