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Wednesday, July 12, 2006
Journal

Today I got the calendar implemented in the dbixdemo page. It didn't take very much tweaking, but there was just one simple error that had me stuck for hours. Turned out the form I was trying to access had gotten pasted inside another form, so my code didn't see it where it was looking. And I never could get the Firefox DOM inspector working here on Linux. I think I'd have to reinstall Firefox and enable a certain option on the installation, something I really don't know how to do. For all I've learned about Linux, I still shy away from installations unless they're on the portage tree.

One great breakthough today, though - I found out that scp goes both ways, not just one way as I had thought. This means I can copy files between my computer and the server as I please! Also, Andy found something that lets you mount a remote directory on your machine so you can treat it like a local folder. I may try that - it would allow me to use gvim on these files and open separate windows instead of trying to memorize which "screen" session each file is open in.

Anyhow, when I say the calendar is implemented, I mean it's in the page and it plays nicely with the page. The page doesn't actually do anything with the data the user enters via the calendar. I'm working on that next. I decided to try to get this version working before I try to create another version.

For tomorrow:

  • Add jul12 to the list of documents to keep in sync with - another scratchpad :) 
 
Thursday, July 13, 2006
Journal

Wow, what a day.

Today I finished modifying the code behind the web page to actually use the dates entered via the calendar picker. It works, if somewhat buggily.

After that, I worked for a while on a version of the calendar that would highlight the range the user had chosen. I had expected it to be a few minor changes, but it just got more and more complicated until I realized that it wasn't really worth it. I was spending hours trying to work out all these bugs for the sole sake of a bit of highlighting. So we will stick with the version where you just click 2 separate dates.

Right now I am cleaning up the calendar and web page interface. I used <noscript> tags to display a message and an alternate way of entering the data, should the user access the page with javascript disabled. I set up the calendar to be hidden by default (using CSS), and it is displayed via a javascript call when the page loads. This way, the page will make sense to the user whether or not they have javascript enabled. Those who do will see the calendar and no extra junk; those who don't won't even see the calendar.

I'll continue prettying up the page tomorrow. Once I have the front end smoothed out, that will probably be the point at which I start cleaning up the back-end code (which has become quite cluttered with all these changes) and stamping out some remaining bugs.

I copied the files to make a new version of the calendar. (I need to ask Nate sometime about getting subversion set up.) I learned a neat new command combination:

ls -R | grep someword

This basically searches all filenames recursively for any that contain someword. You're piping the output of the ls command into the grep command. I couldn't get it to work at first because I was putting a * on the end of the grep command like I usually do to indicate that it should search everything.

Notes to self for tomorrow:

Documents: 

  • jul13_2 - mostly calendar stuff
  • that same master todo list, afterwards
  • Cleaning up interface, then cleaning up backend code and debugging
Last Updated ( Thursday, 13 July 2006 )
 
Friday, July 14, 2006
Journal

I made a lot of progress on the interface, mostly the calendar. I got the interface looking about the way I want it to, and cleaned up colors and such. I made it a lot bigger so that it should be easier to use, especially for elderly people. I fixed the range issues on the calendar. It took a bit of reprogramming, but now it will notify you (only once) if you try to move past the acceptable date range, and it will not mistakenly adjust the date range after said notification. I set the date range to begin where our data begins, at least on this server, and end "today" (where today changes with the date - I don't mean literally July 14, 1006).

I removed all the holidays from the calendar, but I plan to leave some sort of documentation that indicates that we could use them to add events - for example, "Marie's surgery" - so they could be easily seen on the calendar as the user is selecting the dates.

My coworkers looked at the calendar and tested it to be sure they couldn't break it. Andy had a great idea for how to arrange the buttons that are used to navigate between months and/or years.

Right now I'm having an issue with the font size. There seems to be an upper limit on the font size in my browser (and it's not a very high limit). I've had very limited success reproducing this effect on other browsers. I posted for help to the Gentoo forums (link). Also, I've never been able to get IRC working on here, so no instant help for me! I guess I could try setting it up on one of the Windows computers behind me.

Notes to self for Monday: 

  • Scratchpad is now jul14summ
  • First thing to do Monday: check for forum response, clean up highlight-type colors on calendar
Last Updated ( Friday, 14 July 2006 )
 
Monday, July 17, 2006
Journal

Nate is back!

I got a lot done today. I tried a new technique: get something done, anything, BEFORE you check your email. It helped. I fixed some style things on the calendar to make it look nicer, and I tested a few things. It's about done, really. There are always many small things to tweak, but it works, and it works well. I added a button that clears all selected dates.

Someone on the forum helped me find the problem with the font size being limited. It has to do with the default font that was set in my browser. I guess that that font (Times) doesn't have a character set for larger sizes, perhaps? Anyway, changing the default font fixes the issue! (the helpful post)

Nate and I talked for a while in the afternoon about what I have gotten done and how I can spend the rest of my time. The web page I've been working on doesn't need a lot more right now. I may add small things to it if I need a break from other tasks. We started talking about other visualizations, and I showed him the three mockups I did towards the beginning of my time here ([Edit: Links updated and clarified] floorplan mockup, 1D data mockup, bubble chart mockup). He was impressed with the first two, especially the floorplan mockup. I will work on generalizing these (along the lines of making a library or package), and hopefully we can have a demo of the floorplan one by next Wednesday's meeting (not this week's).

Also, I showed him the thermometer/graph mockup I did in Paint (well, KolourPaint) for Dr. Keller (click for full size) -

graph and thermometer

- and he had me create a web-ified version of the thermometer as well (click the phrases on that page to try it).

He was interested in the research I did on animated speaking heads in web pages, so I'm going to send him what I found on that as well.

Notes to self:

  • My docs are jul17summ and progress lately, jul 17 (and I really need to clean them up)
  • Work on bubble chart next
Last Updated ( Tuesday, 26 September 2006 )
 
Visualizations research to share
Resources

Bookmarks to show Nate: Visualizations and graphs stuff, incl maps

Graphs and Images - Showcase

2D / 3D Vertical Bar Graph Software - from $49
With the Vertical Bar Graph software you will be quickly adding great looking bar graphs and charts to your web pages and applications. Includes database access methods, link on mouse click, dynamic interaction, javascript. Supports Various Data Sources (Files, Databases, Scripts/Server processes, HTML parameters). Printer Friendly.
CSS Sprites: Image Slicing's Kiss of Death
This is a cool demo using only CSS, no javascript. You can hover over elements of an image and click them, sort of like an html imagemap. The details of how it's built are in the "howto" folder on this list.
Create A Graph
You can create a graph interactively on this page. Uses Flash.
DISLIN
Click through some of the examples on this page. Includes contour and colormap plots.
Graphviz
Eye candy! (Someone wrote about how they made GraphViz do image maps of what it generated (node/tree).)
Large Graph Layout (LGL)
Visualization of Large Graphs; Visualization of Large Networks. Probably not what we're looking for. This page does have some examples that are cool to look at.
.Net Grap-- see http://www.graphicsserver.com/dotnet/ for using with Ajax
I guess we would have to be running .Net? But they have about every graph imaginable on this page. Hundreds of dollars.
G A P M I N D E R: VIEW WORLD INCOME DISTRIBUTION 2003
I like the interactivity here. Uses Flash.
THE SECRET LIVES-- runs on Java
This (very cool-looking) interactive visualization allows users to view the popularity of individual integers.
Swiff Chart Generator
Makes a chart dynamically on the same page that you enter the data. Cool effect. Uses Flash. See "howto" folder for more on this.
Perl: 3D Graphs
A quick demo of how to use the 3D functions of GD::Graph - basically, how we could use what we already have to do 3D graphs.
ImageMagick: Examples of ImageMagick Usage
ImageMagick (TM) is a free software suite to create, edit and compose bitmap images. It can read, convert and write images in a large variety of formats. Images can be cropped, colors can be changed, various effects can be applied, images can be rotated and combined, and text, lines, polygons, ellipses and Bézier curves can be added to images and stretched and rotated. ImageMagick is free software: it is delivered with full source code and can be freely used, copied, modified and distributed. Its license is compatible with the GPL. It runs on all major operating systems. Most of the functionality of ImageMagick can be used interactively from the command line; more often, however, the features are used from programs written in the programming languages Perl, C, C++, Python, PHP, Ruby or Java, for which ready-made ImageMagick interfaces (PerlMagick, Magick++, PythonMagick, MagickWand for PHP, RubyMagick, and JMagick) are available. This makes it possible to modify or create images automatically and dynamically. ImageMagick supports many image formats (over 90 major formats) including popular formats like TIFF, JPEG, PNG, PDF, PhotoCD, and GIF. See also http://sourceforge.net/projects/imagemagick/
Canvas examples
This won't work in IE, but you should still see it because it's stinking cool. A new element called "canvas" allows for a lot of neat interactive graphics in web pages. Most impressive demo is "Canvas Painter"; "fractals" demo takes a long time.

Virtual agent stuff

showcase

Visual agent thoughts: For that matter, why not have video clips of a real human? Which is less resource-intensive? Which is easier to understand? Which looks cleaner?
CodeBaby
Need to use IE for this one (at least, I did). High quality enough to be useful instead of distracting. Check out the link on the right side under "Bell Deploys CodeBaby" for great example of how this can be useful. Sounds like a real human reads the script. It could be a good candidate, if responses are to be preprogrammed anyway. Human voice makes it a lot easier to understand, especially for elders, and then you still have the virtual agent.
SitePal - Welcome to SitePal!
A bit more artificial, but works in my Firefox. The demo is fun to try - you can customize a character. Sounds like a real human reads the script in this one as well, though the lips are less realistic to read.
Verbot® 4 by Conversive, Inc.
A bit artificial, but also works in Firefox. The speech is simulated as well, so while it doesn't sound as nice, it makes it easy to change the messages. FREE! Maybe it could be hooked up to a chatterbot to generate the responses.

other refs - ignore these unless you're bored

CodeBaby › Showcase
BOTSPOT: Windows: Artificial_Life_Bots
many bots and readers here
Verbot® 4 by Conversive, Inc.
People Putty
Stauri Solo - Download Stauri Solo free
The definitive resource for all things Intelligent Agent and bot related, including Bot of the Week. Locate the intelligent agents of your Information Age dreams at BotSpot. Bots make life easier.
SeeStorm Messenger-- prolly not
With SeeStorm Messenger you can talk naturally over the Internet like you do over the phone - but for free - plus visually communicate your emotions and facial expressions via compelling 3D characters. SeeStorm 3D talking heads act and speak in synch with your voice and true-to-life behavior, providing enhanced level of expressiveness simply not possible in a text-based chat. 3D characters you choose also empower you to decide whom you want to become online. And you do not need webcam for lifelike video!

not quite what I want - ignore these unless you're bored

3D Chat World - moove online - What is the Virtual 3D Chat World moove online?
Virtual 3D chat online world Roomancer(rose):Free!Create own interactive virtual 3D avatars,facial expressions,virtual decorating of unique 3D chat rooms,create 3D chat online home,3D chat with friend
Home of the 3D Internet, Virtual Reality and Community Chat
3D Virtual Reality Chat at its finest. Create your own 3D world, chat with others in Virtual Reality environments created by others and much more
Recruiting the Chatterbots - CNET.com
Victauri LLC Stauri FAQtaur - no lip sync

perl image maps

Programming Web Graphics with Perl & GNU Software -- Sample chapter
Looks like a tutorial on how to do imagemaps in perl and html.
GIMP - Perlotine Tutorial
"Perl-O-Tine is a [Gimp] plug-in that slices an image along guides that you have placed and writes the html table that will put it back together again on a web page." Create an imagemap from an image. It looks to me like you have to adjust the borders manually for the image, so not what we want.
Generating clickable graphs (Jan 02)
I think this specifically refers to using Perl for this

howto and about - if you want more info

A List Apart: Articles: A More Accessible Map
Things like Google Maps and other clickable maps, if done improperly, can be impossible for a visually impaired web user to navigate.
A List Apart: Articles: CSS Sprites: Image Slicing’s Kiss of Death
Replace old-school image slicing with CSS
Google Gapminder - Google Blogoscoped Forum
[Image-SIG] Making animated GIFs
Forums ~ View topic - Global Rich List
Swiff Chart Generator - erver-side solution to dynamically serve eye-catching animated charts
Swiff Chart Generator is the server-side solution to dynamically serve eye-catching animated charts from Active Server Pages (ASP), PHP scripts or JSP scripts. Query data from a database, apply your own style template created with the Swiff Chart authoring tool and instantly generates high-impact charts in Macromedia Flash format, PNG/JPG format, SVG format and PDF format.
Web Design Layout
Web Design Layout
perl graphics - Google Search
Free Graphics Libraries, 3D/2D Engines, Image Drawing, Animation Source Code (thefreecountry.com)
Source code, libraries, 3D/2D engines for graphics drawing, manipulation and game programing
Forums ~ View topic - Global Rich List
Jeremy Wadsack / GD-Graph3d - search.cpan.org
ATrpms - by Distribution > Fedora Core 5 > perl-GD-Graph3d
CPANTS - CPAN Testing Service
perl-GD-Graph3d RPM : Dries RPM Repository
DAG: perl-GD-Graph3d RPM packages for Red Hat/Fedora
perl-GD-Graph3d RPM packages for Red Hat/Fedora
Last Updated ( Tuesday, 26 September 2006 )
 
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