Design Group Meeting 5 Feb 2004

Attending: MitchKapor, ChaoLam, BrianDouglasSkinner

In this meeting we walked through the list of projects shown on the ProjectOverviewTable2005. From walking through the list, we identified "next actions" for many of the projects. Also, a number of the components on the list don't yet have written design docs, and for some of those components we talked about what level of functionality we might want for Canoga, with the goal of moving towards having some initial, rough design doc that describes feature scope.

Next actions

• Mail
  • for 0.4, negotiate engineering resources -- figure out who's available, and prioritize work based on availability

• PIM Capplet design docs
  • Q: For the PIM capplets, how closely to the current design docs match reality? Which ones are roughest, and which ones are already more well specified?
  • A: Brian to look through docs and come up with answer. Brian to put status info in the cells of the ProjectOverviewTable2005, for the design doc column, and maybe for the UI design column as well.

• Chandler landscape and ProjectOverviewTable2005
  • Work with Mimi to figure out how we want to tie together the work on the Chandler landscape with the projects listed under the UI components section of the ProjectOverviewTable2005.

• Internationalization
  • We want to subcontract a piece of work to figure out the scope of the internationalization work and assess the options/approaches. For step is to write up short doc describing what sort of resources we need to do that work. Basically, write a RFP (request for proposal) that will later lead to an internationalization proposal. The internationalization proposal will be something like the DartmouthPkiProposal -- "for this problem, this is the approach we recommend..."
  • We don't need to ship Canoga in a variety of different langauges, but we would like to ship it with all the infrastructure in place so that 3rd parties can produce localized versions. We need to look into what's involved, and either validate that goal or shoot it down as being too hard.

• HTML editing
  • We need to carry the discussion about HTML rendering and HTML editing to the point where we're starting to get engineering feedback.

• Interoperability
  • Deliver a rough spec

Resolutions

• 0.4 priorities
  • 0.4 does not have any goals for interoperability or "mundane features" so these are lower on the design priority list than components with 0.4 deliverables

• process -- (recorded in DevelopmentProcess^?)
  • For the design docs that describe the PIM capplets (mail, calendar contacts, etc.), the design group will attempt to bring the design docs up to some level of rough-spec quality, without disturbing the engineering groups.
  • For the dot-release docs, the design group will involve engineering and do more detailed planning.

• terminology -- (recorded in GlossaryTermsToAdd)
  • "Capplet" is a fuzzy, English language term; not a technical term

• printing -- (recorded in UnfiledDesign2004#PrintingFeatures)
  • Basic printing is more important than many of the other "mundane features" listed (like "auto-update", or a clean, crisp UI design for preferences). Printing doesn't need to be outstanding, just functional -- get the first 80% working, without spending tons of time on bells and whistles.

• spell checking -- (recorded in UnfiledDesign2004#TextServices)
  • Q: in-line spell checking vs. batch spell checking?
  • A: in-line spell checking is a requirement for Canoga

• generic viewer -- (recorded in UnfiledDesign2004#GenericViewer)
  • in scope for Canoga: a capplet/view that lets you work with simple tables -- a basic "spreadsheet" view like the mixed view in 0.3
  • Post-Canoga: a more feature-rich, complex table-outline view

• end-user CPIA -- (recorded in UnfiledDesign2004#EndUserCPIA)
  • no plans to expose any CPIA UI-builder capabilities in Canoga

• agents -- (recorded in UnfiledDesign2004#AgentDesign)
  • open issue: Do we plan to expose agents in the Canoga UI

• BrianDouglasSkinner - 11 Feb 2004