My first impression from peeking into the source for Question2Answer is that it seems to be built to co-exist nicely with other OS applications. For example, one can plug in their own code for user database management or for localization - for example if one wanted to use gettext instead of PHP arrays for multilingual messages (even though it's just code filling in, not some OO pattern based style - but that's a different matter all together).
However, there does not seem to be a pre design to allow plugging in search functionality. My question is: if anyone has integrated the sphinx search engine into Question2Answer, then what is the best technique or tips to achieve that.
I checked the docs on creating plugins here: http://www.question2answer.org/plugins.php, and the plugins system seems to accommodate certain types of functionality such as event handlers or content widgets - but not generic functionality or a search module specifically.
Version 1.5 of Question2Answer will support search modules in plugins which allow you to implement a custom indexer and search engine.
Related
I am seeking a way to allow my non-tech users to specify a workflow and execute it (if anyone is interested, I want them to specify and execute test cases). Visual programming seems a good way to go.
Can I modify the Scratch IDE to remove some categories (such as sound, motion, etc), and add some of my own? Ditto for individual keywords (obviously, I then need to handle new keywords).
I have Googled, but the answer is not immediately apparent.
[Update] I have just found Google's Blockly
Blockly was influenced by App Inventor, which in turn was influenced
by Scratch, which in turn was influenced by StarLogo.
It looks very promising. Especially when it says
Exportable code. Users can extract their programs as JavaScript, Python, PHP, Dart or other language so that when they outgrow Blockly
they can keep learning.
Open source. Everything about Blockly is open: you can fork it, hack it, and use it in your own websites.
Extensible. Make Blockly fit with your application by adding custom blocks for your API and remove unneeded blocks and
functionality.
One possible snag is that it is browser based, but if my management don't like that, then I can create a dummy Windows based app consisting of little but a TWebBrowser component.
I will investigate and report back - unless someone else posts an acceptable answer first.
The short answer to your initial question is: no. You can't customize Scratch, or not to the extent that you seem to ask/want.
That said, look at:
custom blocks.
scratch extensions.
variants like snap
using scratch's source code in squeak to make your own variant.
other systems inspired from scratch, like appinventor and blockly.
Only the first two are compatible with the scratch web site.
A word on the site: depending on your purpose with Scratch, the exchange between users is a powerful part of scratch. Check how cooperation is supported, like the backpack. There's also a good wiki that documents much of the above.
At the moment Iam evaluating java web frameworks. More precisely Iam talking about GWT, JSF2 and apache wicket. One very importent criteria in this evaluation is prototyping.
The prototyping process in my company can be described by the folloing:
The customer can produce GUIs with an easy to use WYSIWYG editor, by drag&drop-ing web components on the corporate predefined website structur. There is also a need for some litte dynamic being like navigation from one frame to another.
So Iam looking for tools. These tools should not only provide nice GUIs but also deliver
some basic code, which can be forwarded to the development. The aim is to avoid missunderstandings between designers and developers as much as possible. More or less the
developers just have to implements the code, but not to implement the optical requirements.
In addition it would be desirable to customize the components thats been used in the WYSIWYG editor. Does anyone know any good tools for the mentioned frameworks (GWT, JSF2, wicket)?
One of the challenges with WYSIWYG tools for UI is that you generally have to pick between rapid prototyping and maintainable code. Even then, as soon as you want to do something that's not supported by the prototyping tool, you can implement it as you would without the prototyping tool, but your round-trip functionality (namely turning your app back into something that can be edited) is broken or crippled unless extra work is done to generate the metadata that the editor needs.
Upgrading between major releases is another issue. Vendors and groups who have developed these tools have a historically spotty record of when they stop supporting older versions, reasonably because of limited resources and sometimes difficult problems with how to track solid innovation happening in the framework itself.
My suggestion instead is to prototype with an RIA prototyping tool like Balsamiq Mockups or use a grid system like 960 Grid to generate rapid prototypes, then use a web development framework that allows your developers to run the code with or without the backend server. Wicket has a tag called that is great for this kind of thing -- web devs can fill a div with stuff that a component should generate, and Wicket devs can wrap the contents of that tag with after they implement it. Both parties can coexist for a long time that way.
Try GWT Designer for GWT.
Introduction
Quick Start Guide
Download
There's nothing like this for Wicket that I know of. The closest you would get to any kind of resource reuse from your customer would be to give them a drag and drop HTML editor - the resulting HTML could then form the basis of Wicket page/panel layout.
if you are planing to use a javascript library, you may use extjs,
http://www.sencha.com/products/js/
they have developed a nice designer
www.sencha.com/products/designer/
there is also a port of ext in GWT
www.sencha.com/products/gwt/
You have to pay for a commercial license if your application isn't open source!
I am looking to develop a multi-user web application that supports the following key features:
fill out forms with demographic data on individuals
define and administer surveys & polls
generate nice reports with graphs)
user rights administration and generic login stuff
My dilemma is whether to use a CMS (Drupal?) or develop from scratch.
Putting the time and cost issues aside for a minute, which are an obvious CMS strength, what are the weaknesses and potential risks using a CMS? my gut tells me that a CMS will be very easy and quick to start with, but when the features list begins to grow - I will pay the bill with having to delve into unfamiliar DB structure and code, try to tweak existing modules or write my own from scratch.
Is it really better, over the long run, to use a CMS?
There are two basic types of CMSes:
focused on features
focused on flexibility
The first type - focused on features - usually offer lot of modules or extensions to expand the basic functionality. You can build your web site very quickly using ready-to-use third party modules. There's a disadvantage of this way - it isn't so easy to bend or customize these modules. Usually you need to rewrite them.
Drupal. WordPress and Joomla are good examples of the first type of CMSes.
The second type - focused on flexibility - somewhere called Content Management Frameworks - don't offer so much prefabricated modules, but offer much more tools and ways to make your structure and relationships between elements fit your needs. It takes more time to learn this kind of CMS or to build your fist web site, but you can easily customize anything you need.
Some examples of the second type CMSes: SilverStripe, Symphony CMS, appRain, MODx, ezPublish.
appRain is one of the best customizable option where you will get both option of CMS and also complex coding by it's framework.
Development process is also easy. New version 4.0.4 is on they way to be released.
How easy it's to come up with a drag and drop web-based interface that'll provide me features to wire objects together, setup configurations nicely in a modal window for each object? I'm looking for links that've any similar kind of interface, or articles on this. also, i'm looking for your technology/language suggestions.
Another way I'm thinking - as a desktop appln + browser dependent addon..
Is it good to create such an user-interface using XUL, which can be deployed as an addon on Firefox/as a stand-alone application in Windows? Are there any other similar things/technologies which can provide a basic framework for us to build on it further?
Why do I need this, finally?
..for building simple Workflows, for defining process flows, that can provide me some auto-generated xml content which I can use for further processing.
Thanks!
I'm quite interested in this, too.
I've flirted with HTML5's DragDrop implementation - Quirksmode has Bad Things to say about that, so then I thought "Perhaps a JavaScript library can help me" - haven't checked out jquery for this yet, but I have checked out YUI's DragDrop, DragDropManager and DataSource, and its looking hopeful (consistent, reliable).
I tried things like adding an iframe on the fly to any document, to provide this kind of functionality without needing to add dependencies to the page given the iframe - mixed results, but in my case I was trying to cater for x-domain access, which proved difficult.
So I'd say JavaScript could be a winner - if designed poorly it could be difficult to manage resources though, if you want to potentially DragDrop/edit/config any element in a document - so watch out for that.
If you're keen and able, Adobe AIR apps also look promising - but I can't help with any more info on that, other than they're Desktop Apps with great flexibility.
I'ma going to keep an eye on your Question, I look forward to any other Answers/comments!
EDIT: I forgot to mention Flex (aka Flash Builder 4, latest version) is quite easy to create stuff like this, though I've had exposure to Flash for a while. It comes with the standard Adobe caveats; price, libraries, support.
Does anyone have experience with Google Closure Editor/WYSIWYG? I'm thinking of moving from CKEDITOR to Google Closure Editor/WYSIWYG. Ideally I'd love to use the etherpad editor but it doesn't appear that anyone has separated the editor from all the app.
Anyhow, for Google Closure Editor/WYSIWYG, does anyone know, does it support the real-time collaborative aspects seen in Google Docs?
The Google Closure editor is a wrapper around the built-in browser editing capabilities. It is thus similar to other rich text editors like TinyMCE, CKEditor, etc. It is less feature-rich than either of those, but it's smaller and faster. The base editor is used by Gmail (most notably) and various other Google properties.
There is nothing within the public Google Closure editor to enable Google Docs style real-time collaboration. With that said, it has a plugin model which enables you to add new functionality. I would not recommend taking something like this on without a solid understanding of working with Google Closure.
Until recently, the editor was also used by Google Docs. However, the limitations of core browser editing technology became a barrier to innovation, so they built their own editing surface[1,2] (codenamed Kix). This editing surface is not included in Closure Library.
https://drive.googleblog.com/2010/04/a-rebuilt-more-real-time-google.html
https://drive.googleblog.com/2010/05/whats-different-about-new-google-docs.html
It might not last, but there is a standalone version of kix up on github:
https://github.com/benjamn/kix-standalone
EtherPad Lite is the most viable option I've seen so far:
https://github.com/ether/etherpad-lite
Personally I favor this one, because:
It's open source
You can host your own
Has few server-side dependencies (Node.js)
It has an API, so you can build your app in any language
Attempting to steal Google's work is probably not a good long-term plan. (I'm also not convinced that having the client-side libraries actually helps you, in terms of the real-time collaboration feature, which depends heavily on the server-side.)