brainstorming with donn about scripting

• inspirations
  • applescript
  • spreadsheet macros
  • javascript in web pages

• observations
  • few people write elaborate macros, many people use others' macros and sometimes tweak them

• who is the target user?
  • pim enthusiast who wants to customize chandler, to a particular workflow or methodology
  • someone who's programming skills are equivalent to a macro developer or light scripter (javascript)
  • someone who wants to avoid overhead of building chandler, using svn, etc.

• what is the ui for scripts?
  • where do scripts live?
  • how are they edited?
  • how do they integrate with the system?
  • current ui ok for one time action, doesn't really address "agent" scripts or scripts that extend/add functionality

• what apis are available to the scripts?
  • api to access, extend and customize UI (blocks, menus, events)
  • api to access model (pim, collections)
  • api to drive ui the way a user would (discoverable)

• agent, background daemon scripts to automate tasks

• how limited should scripting be? should scripters be able to do any development a parcel developer could? should scripters be given a more narrow/structured box to work in?

• goal: allow a bigger community of people to experiment with creating new features

• types of scripts
  • one time action
  • adding new features/extending chandler
  • agent

possible features

• # of items in collection displayed in sidebar
• create a new item from the clipboard
• automate repetitive things
  • export favorite calendars, marking some items as private based on some criteria
  • move things from some collection (IN) to some other collection based on some custom or complex critieria
• mail
  • auto reply
  • filtering
  • mail templates
• events
  • add everyone's birthday without manually jumping around and creating by hand
  • invite the same set of people to meetings
  • create meeting agenda with standard template
• GTD nanny
• workflow forms processing
• view customization: display custom field in calendar view
• integrating with other apps
  • clipboard data turns into chandler items (dnd, imported files)
• define new schema (kinds, add attributes to kinds, create enumerations etc.)
  • current problem where we'd need a parcel space to do this

what would be needed to support this?

• CRUD (create, retrieve, update, delete) API for domain model items
• sensible API for manipulating collections
• access to global environment
  • clipboard
  • well known collections
  • prefs and styles
  • selected date
• add actions
  • accessible from menu, toolbar
  • automate actions ("agent")
• solve the problem of parcel space needed to create schema
• API to customize UI
  • summary view, sidebar display, detail view
  • allow free form drawing?
  • adding text to well known locations?
  • adding columns to table or fields to detail view?