Re: [mds] (almost) friday update

[Gabe J. <joh...@cs...>]

> I was and still am tempted to convert it to a tree-table because I
think
> that would look cooler, but it's tricky to do, and I couldn't find a
> decent example of one anywhere.  I plan to come back to this in my
own
> time though.
>
> I'm in Newton right now for the afternoon, I'm going to document my
code,
> go back and look at the javascript and add some platform/browser
checks
> that spawn warning dialogs.  Also I'll design some new hooks, and
start
> putting them in the text.
>
> exactly what version of Netscape & IE does our applet require now?

For now, your tree component is fine. I think your mission at this
point should be to work with Eric on hookifying the text. He's got
some applet-ized version of the first chapter, so you need to get that
from him, and whatever other changes he's made. Like I said when we
were chatting in Newton the other day, I think our hooks should be a
bit more sparse. I think that a hook at the top of every section would
do the trick

When you design the hook, keep two things in mind:

1) It should be conspicuous enough that there's no question about it:
clicking on this thing will let you read messages or will cause you to
start writing a message. Right now the hook I have in node4.html only
sends you to read-mode, but we need to have a dual-purpose hook: read
and write. Look at the js for that, and create an appropriate js
function for writing. I'll deal with the Enviro.

2) Eventually we will liven things up so that the web server will
magically make the images look different when there's more or less
content. Maybe leaving some whitespace in the image would be a good
idea. I dunno, do what you can do.

Only now, at the end, do you understand the power of the dark side of
the force.