SnipSnap and Simpleface
The news about SnipSnap annoyed the crap out of me. A Java wiki? With weblogging? Why the HELL didn't I do that before?!?! It set of a chain-reaction of thoughts in my head which I've been mulling over the past few days.
First, I need to add this functionality to SimpleWeb. I've already noticed and intentionally used a table in my blogging and wiki software which contains all the shared fields of Wikis, Blogs and Forums: Dates, Titles, Contents, Authors and Parents. I've created separate applications to hold this data (I have some forum software that I wrote too...) and sorta mulled combining them, but hadn't. I haven't looked at SnipSnap, but now that someone else has done something like this I'm completely annoyed. I should have made that leap of logic before. All the pieces of the puzzle were in front of me.
By the way, this isn't exactly a new discovery - these are the same fields you'll find in a basic Lotus Notes app. Check my resume and you'll see how this is all related. Think about all those different types of Notes apps you can find that basically use the same format (Mail, for example?)
Anyways, this brings me to my second thought which is that Simpleface.org is a dying website. It hasn't been updated in over a month. I have no time and really no momentum to do anything on it, but it's still a pretty good idea. So in addition to adding the blogging and comments piece to my SimpleWeb software, I'm also thinking about changing the focus of the Simpleface website to be a multi-author weblog about UI design.
Here's the email I just sent out to the members of the Simpleface mailing list. There's like 20 or so people on it:
Hey All,
So Simpleface is just sitting there. I've been meaning to add stuff to it for, what, 5 months now? So obviously I'm not going to - one can only procrastinate for so long. Here's some options of what we can do with the Simpleface site:
1) Open up the scope of the project: Include web UI design in the mix for example... there seems to be a lot more people interested in that than regular UI. I think, however, that this won't get much response either.
2) Make it into a multi-weblog. I'm thinking about something like MetaFilter or that 802.11 Networking News blog (http://80211b.weblogger.com/), but for UI design. People can sign up, write their thoughts daily, UI tips, and links to good UI examples, etc.
3) Wack it, forget about it. Good idea, but didn't get momentum. Next!
My vote is for #2. I think that's what most of us had in mind in the first place, I just wasn't into 'blogging when I first developed the site. Now I'm almost doing 100% blogging - either writing on my blog or working on blog software. I think it's an amazing way to add content.
Tell me what you think.
-Russ
So... I've now bitten off WAY more than I can chew with the Journal on one hand and expanding SimpleWeb on the other. But I think I can get it all done. But DAMN! Why didn't I do this before!
-Russ