[Fle3-dev] some plans for Flebas, FLE 3 with basic awareness

[Jukka K Purma]

Hello,

First, excuse my english. Can read, not write.
We're trying to use FLE3 as an environment in Connet, project for teaching
cognitive science and cognitive technology in Finnish Virtual University.
For now, we're been using University of Helsinki's WebCT-services as a
general office for discussing and storing grades, but no one is
particularly happy with it. I think that with some modifications we can
feel much more home having our own FLE-server.

I've been studying Zope and FLE3 source for about a week and here's what I
have decided to try:

1.
a) Create a variant of add_memo, for course grades. Like a memo for user's
webtop, but can be modified only by tutors or FLEadmin and read by this
student only.
b) In Connet we have students in eight universities and for each
university there is someone who tutors and assists students there and runs
daily local stuff. He/she should be noted when someone adds a grade for
his/hers student so he/she can add the grade to local register. For this
we need a new variable in user info, your_tutor. When adding grades,
your_tutor gets a copy of memo in hers webtop.

(at least part a) could be useful in all future versions of FLE. I'm quite
sure you can do much more elegant work with that than I.)

2. This should be more interesting and more difficult:
When user logs into FLE3, it opens an irc-client-applet and connects you
to the server which is running in same machine with Zope and FLE.

When you move around in FLE (WTyourname -> KBcoursename -> etc.) FLE
updates a cookie or leaves some other trace of users current location.

The IRC-client applet contains some modifications. Not only it reads users
input, but it in every 10th second or so it also retrieves the cookie /
gets the location some other way and translates this to an irc-command
for 'joining' this location,
so that we have in irc a virtual space^2 of FLE:s virtual space. For
all major locations in FLE there are channels in irc, #webtopJukka f.e..
So we actually see who is online and where they are with all irc's
chat-options. Open source java irc-client I'm modifying also has tools
for tagging users so that you're notified their joinings and leavings.

This following-your-browser-option in client should also be toggled off,
if you don't want to leave current conversation.

For now I've modified the file hdr (HTML header), which seems to be used
every time new page is loaded and creates those nice rounded tabs.
It seems to have all the information I need, for drawing tabs right it has
this variable 'tab' which tells where we are and it often uses this
get_current_user-thing. So this should also drop the location-information
so that java-applet can retrieve it. Cookies and dtml-call
RESPONSE.setCookie should do the trick, but I'm not sure where those
cookies get associated, for now at least I'm sure those commands are
processed, but I haven't found the cookies I've created.

Well, this is what I'm doing now. If anyone sees a dead end coming soon,
warn, and even better if you have some ideas how I can get this to
work. I'm not a programmer (yet) and I hope I can accomplish this by small
changes in existing code. And everything I do takes a considerable time,
because there is so much new to me.

Of course this java-applet compromises FLE:s browser compatibilities, but
with us it's not such a problem, WebCT we're using now has difficulties
with almost every non-windows-platform.

If we get this to work, I will call it Flebas. FLE3 with Basic Awareness
System. Also loaded with nice deeper meanings, Flebas= Finnish spelling
for Phlebas, in T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land, lines about vulnerability of
a lone man. Also for those who have read Iain M Banks, which for me stands
as an beacon these communities should head for.

Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead,
Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep seas swell
And the profit and loss.
A current under sea
Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell
He passed the stages of his age and youth
Entering the whirlpool.
Gentile or Jew
O you who turn the wheel and look to windward,
Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.


jukka
address@hidden
Connet
http://www.virtuaaliyliopisto.fi/osahankkeet/connet/