mcmullen@macado.cica.indiana.edu (Rick McMullen) (04/03/91)
>Does anyone out there have experience with an Xwindow based lab notebook >package (either commercial or public domain)? Ideal features would provide >for Postcript file inclusion and mouse drawing capability. > Thanks, Steve Corbato > U of Utah Physics Dept. > corbato@cosmic.physics.utah.edu We are in the process of writing a specification for a lab notebook and would appreciate any input. The obvious things have been included already: multifont text, equation typesetting, tables and spreadsheets, color and monochrome raster images, outline type expanding and contracting blocks, hypertext link ability, table of contents and index generation, raster flip-card animation, printed report generation, and hooks for live video (currently through The Media Lab's Galatea package.) Other desirable capabilities include symbolic math, reference of nonlocal files by network address, and visual programming as a part of the notebook's contents. Walks on water, eh? Well, the clincher is that the product should be available on at least three types of platforms to reach the largest number of users: Unix workstations, Macs, and PCs, presenting almost insurmountable problems (not even STDWIN could handle this one!) A key issue, then, is to assess who's using what in the laboratory. Physicists have traditionally had the best (e.g. Unix or VMS workstations), Chemists and Biologists seem to be moving from PCs to Macs and Unix workstations. Not to ignore the Second Culture, humanists here seem to be jumping into computing with high end Macs and workstations, so the question is: should PCs be included in plans for a notebook? A very close approximation to what we want is the Andrew Toolkit, although it seems to be lacking a few key items (PLEASE correct me if I'm wrong): color raster images, and outline mode. A very informative paper, "Translating Among Processable Multi-media Document Formats Using ODA", Rosenberg, et. al., from the CMU Andrew project addresses some of the problems associated with sharing multimedia documents in a larger (research) community, and indicates some potential pitfalls in creating a "general purpose" notebook. There is at least one notebook developed by the DOE as a part of their involvement in the Human Genome Initiative, which has not been placed in the public domain (as a taxpayer this outrages me, but you can't fight City Hall), so there is activity and interest. I would like to see more dialog on the general subject of computer based notebook systems and others for the augmentation of intellect (Engelbart, right?) Rick McMullen The Center for Innovative Computer Applications Indiana University Bloomington, IN 47405 mcmullen@ucs.indiana.edu made available
fozzard@alumni.colorado.edu (Richard Fozzard) (04/12/91)
>Does anyone out there have experience with an Xwindow based lab notebook >package (either commercial or public domain)? Ideal features would provide >for Postcript file inclusion and mouse drawing capability. > Thanks, Steve Corbato > U of Utah Physics Dept. > corbato@cosmic.physics.utah.edu Frank Shipman here at the Univ. Colorado was involved in developing such a package for the Baylor College of Medicine. I don't know about its distribution status, but you get more info from him at shipman@cs.colorado.edu It is called the Virtual Notebook System. Incidentally, we are here in the first stages of developing a notebook system for NOAA climatologists interacting with a very large dataset. We hope to have it run on Macs, PCs, and X. There seem to be a number of folks doing this sort of work - it would be nice to get together a mailing list or an alt.electronic-notebooks group. If people who are interested, email me, and I'll compile at least a mailing list. That way, maybe we won't all reinvent the wheel over and over. rich -- ======================================================================== Richard Fozzard "Serendipity empowers" Univ of Colorado/CIRES/NOAA R/E/FS 325 Broadway, Boulder, CO 80303 fozzard@boulder.colorado.edu (303)497-6011 or 444-3168