[FM Discuss] new fm (booki) features

[adam]

also, sorry I should have also thanked John for doing a lot of great 
testing :)

adam

On 07/04/2011 12:34 PM, adam wrote:
> hi,
>
> So...Aco, Tuukkah and I have been hard at work putting together some new
> features for booki. FM is the debut of some exciting stuff...big thanks
> and hurrah goes to Aco and Tuukkah for all the time they spent working
> on these - planning, implementing, testing. I think these changes
> represent a big step forward for Booki and thanks from all of 'us' is
> due to them both.
>
> We also need to stretch out our thanks to that rather fantastic org that
> has supported FM alot - Internews France. They got behind this dev and
> supported it by including FM in a grant. Many many thanks for this -
> they had their own reasons for doing this and I am sure they were also
> generously inclined to 'just' help us improve booki. Big cheers
> especially to Laurent (a huge supporter of Fm from the early days) and
> Sandra and Thomas.
>
> ok...so. What are the changes? well they are numerous. So, first of
> all...there are now Admin roles for manuals. This is managed in the
> 'settings' tab in any manual. You will only see this settings tab if you
> are already an admin for that book. You become an admin by creating a
> new manual or via the settings tab (you need to ask the admin). It is
> possible to make others admins for the manuals. Ad admin gets some
> special abilities. You change attribution information, define language
> and text direction (important for sending to objavi), *manage chapter
> statuses* (more on this below), and define who can edit the manual
> (intended to be used only if spam is an issue).
>
> We will also add to this list of admin abilities the ability to push
> content to www.flossmanuals.net. That means you dont need two accounts -
> one on the publisher and one on booki- you can publish content of
> www.flossmanuals.net directly (I hope to have this up in the next days).
>
> The manage status messages is probably the control that will be most
> used in the settings tab. On each chapter you can set a status for that
> chapter. You can see on the right of a chapter on the TOC (Table of
> Contents) that there is a status. If you click on this you see a pop up
> and can change the status for that chapter from a selected list (to be
> proofed, to be published etc). Until now the status possibilities were
> universal but now they can be defined per manual via the settings tab.
> This is very very cool and Aco did a really great job of making this
> work in a way that is straightforward and easy to use. Very very rockn.
>
> I am actually very excited as I am writing all this...:))) I think all
> this is a huge step forward for fm and booki. Ok..onto more
> features..Aco also made a really nice diff feature. You can now get side
> by side highlighted diffs from the history tab.
>
> Revision viewing -if you choose 'view' for a chapter in the ToC you get
> a dropdown with all the revisions for that chapter. You can simply
> choose them and browse back and forward with the drop down if you want
> to see quickly how the chapter has advanced.
>
> The same view can be accessed by the 'view chapter' button on the
> editing window - the window where you actually edit a chapter. This view
> can be floated and moved anywhere so you can see the original text of
> the chapter as you change it. This is *very* useful for translators of
> course (this is actually why we built it - so translators can see the
> source as they translate).
>
> In addition to all this Aco built a very nice info interface for all
> manuals. Each manual now can be viewed in three ways :
> _edit (note: changed from /edit/) - edit interface
> _info - gives you information about the manual
> _draft - draft view
>
> eg:
> http://booki.flossmanuals.net/ardour/_edit/
> http://booki.flossmanuals.net/ardour/_info/
> http://booki.flossmanuals.net/ardour/_draft
>
> The info page has info on the book including recent activity etc including:
> * 'owner' (we will change this as there is no 'owner' - creator might be
> a better word but suggestions welcome)
> * what group it belongs to
> * when it was created
> * recent activity
> * who has worked on it
> * who is working on it now
> * link to rss to track changes
>
> I have not yet linked this page to the fm interface - need to think
> where it goes but I will do today or tomorrow - you can get to it
> directly via any book url ending with _info
>
> Eventually we want to add other info to the _info but and ideas are very
> welcome.
>
> So thanks thanks thanks to Aco for all of this and for managing the
> upgrade and merging etc.
>
> Ok...next up and equally exciting. Fm now has micromessaging services.
> Tuukkah (who we were introduced to via FM finland) has done an
> outstanding job building in messaging services. When you log in you will
> see a 'post a message' text appear at the top right of the content box.
> This persists no matter where you are on the site. Ifyou click on this
> you get a pop up and you can send messages from it. Messages have the
> same syntax as status.net (which in turn follows twitter) -
> @username - direct message to user
> !groupname - message to group
> #hashtag - create your own hashtags
> βbookname - message book
>
> You can also follow any user/hash/book and if you *join* a group you are
> then auto following the groups tag
>
> That is not all - the message box allows you to send images ('add option
> attachment') and it *excitingly* it allows you to include a content
> snippet through a WYSIWYG editor in the message dialog. The snippet
> feature is built in so you can send anyone in the fm booki universe a
> snippet to translate/check/proof read etc. The same is true for the
> image attchments (you can also pass odt files/pdf etc with this).
>
> thats not all - you can access this dialog from the editor - if you are
> editing a chapter there is a little button in the editor that pops open
> the message dialog with the chapter included in the snippet box already.
> This will shortly include only the highlighted area if there is
> something highlighted...
>
> Also, messages are sent via email to notify you if there is a message.
> Youcan control this from the 'my settings' page. The syntax is obscure
> but in the 'notification filter' you can put (separated by space):
> @* - block emails for direct messages to you
> #* - block messages from hashtags you are following
> !* - block group messages from groups you belong to
> ~* - block messages form people you are following
> ℬ* - block messages from boosk you are following
>
> by default you only get emails from direct messages
>
> You can see all your messages from your profile page.
>
>
> ok...thats all for now. there is a bit more but digest this. I am really
> excited by all of this. The tools Aco and Tuukkah have built aid the
> working process and the possibilities for collaboration. I would *love*
> for us to discuss this further on the list - both in general and
> specifics. How can we best use these new tools? How can they be
> improved? also, all bug reports either to booki-dev.flossmanuals.net or
> to the list AND booki-dev.flossmanuals.net (please dont *only* send them
> to the list unless you are trying to work out if it is really a bug)
>
>
> Many thanks again to Internews, especially the long time allie Laurent,
> and also of course to Aco and Tuukkah
>
>
> adam
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-- 

--
Adam Hyde
Founder, FLOSS Manuals
Project Manager, Booki
Book Sprint Facilitator
mobile :+ 49 177 4935122
identi.ca : @eset