RippleRap - The Next Phase

We've now published RippleRap for external consumption, and I'm now planning the next iteration.

Based on our own experiences, and on feedback from members of the community (thanks!), I've identified the following priority items. Let me know if you have additional items you'd like to see on the roadmap, or if you think I've defined the problems incorrectly - or if you think my approach is all wrong!

New features

Given that this is predominantly a conference tool, we can build additional tools into the interface for that environment (or similar environments). Suggestions so far have included:

• Blogging tool (publish notes to your blog - useful for BlogTalk!)
• Twitter tool (post to twitter, pull in your twitterstream for processing or analysis)
• Conference-in-a-box (download conference content from multiple sources e.g. Flickr, Twitter, Blogosphere, for reading offline)

Technical issues

Improved back-end - The current version was developed in tight deadlines and, although it works, it isn't easy to replicate elsewhere.

User Interface

Some known issues include:

• Irritating amount of scrolling required when clicking on an agenda item which has gone off the page
• Calls to action can be clearer (e.g. 'done' appears near 'close')

Bugs

Some known bugs will be fixed. These include:

• CSS issue with images. If you resize the browser the images disappear until 'content' is refreshed
• On RippleRap.com, IE6 running 1024x768, all tiddlers are opening below the Main Menu, even though it looks like there should be enough space for them to open to the right of the MainMenu.

As part of this exercise we'll be undertaking some more cross-browser testing.

Promotional materials

• Demo - We created a demo for Le Web which was displayed on plasma screens on our stall. I'll be created an updated generalised version.
• Cartoon - If I have sufficient time, I might use the Comic Life application to create something like this (created by my former colleagues at LBi)...to illustrate how RippleRap works. But given that I have zero artistic skills, it all depends on how much skill I actually need!
  

Once this roadmap has taken shape, I'll be posting it on RippleRap.com. I'm also keen to identify people who might be willing to contribute (from inside and outside Osmosoft). Note that RippleRap is composed of components which can be used elsewhere; therefore if someone is keen to develop e.g. a generalised publish / subscribe component for their own use, and is willing to collaborate so that it can be used on RippleRap, that would be just peachy.

In any event, whatever work is undertaken by people in Osmosoft will be generalised and available to use in other TiddlyWikis in other places. Reuable components are the order of the day.