[comp.groupware] shared windows?

wpg@mendel.acc.Virginia.EDU (William P. Gardner) (08/04/90)

This question arises from a discussion about the possibility of
developing a statistical program.  Instead of writing code and
distributing it on tape to local sites, one could develop it at a
central site and have the (relatively few but intensively) interested
laboratories login remotely over the net.  Here are my questions:

1.  Is it possible to have a workstation at a remote site that displays
    multiple windows controlled by a program at the central site?

2.  Is it possible to have one or more of those windows be shared among
    two or more remote workstations?

The goal is to facilitate collaboration between statistical specialists
at the central site and investigators at the remote sites, or among
several investigators at the remote site.  Comments and references would
be very welcome.
 [][][][][][][][][][][]   William Gardner  [][][][][][][][][][][][][][][]
 []      /_   o / /   Department of Psychology     wpg@virginia.edu    []
 []     /__) / / /     University of Virginia          804-924-0669    []
 [][][][][][][][][]   Charlottesville, VA 22903    FAX:804-924-7185  [][]

geo@runxtsa.runx.oz.au (George Bray) (08/06/90)

In article <1990Aug4.145827.7722@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> wpg@mendel.acc.Virginia.EDU (William P. Gardner) writes:


>1.  Is it possible to have a workstation at a remote site that displays
>    multiple windows controlled by a program at the central site?

>2.  Is it possible to have one or more of those windows be shared among
>    two or more remote workstations?

MacWEEK 31 July 1990 mentions that Aspects 1.0 developed by Group
Technologies will be announced at the Boston Expo this week.

Terms like "Real-time document conferencing" and "free-for-all
brainstorming mode" are mentioned. It will include word processing,
paint and draw tools and allow participants to work by modem or LAN.

It says their electric telephone number is 703-528-1555 in USA.

-- 
George Bray              >                        Telephone:    +61-2-411-3222
Avante Systems           >   Earthnet:   peg:geo  Facsimile:    +61-2-415-2212
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Chatswood 2067 AUSTRALIA > CompuServe: 72711,253  Internet : geo@ditsyda.OZ.AU

brucec@phoebus.phoebus.labs.tek.com (Bruce Cohen;;50-662;LP=A;) (08/10/90)

In article <1990Aug4.145827.7722@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> wpg@mendel.acc.Virginia.EDU (William P. Gardner) writes:
> 1.  Is it possible to have a workstation at a remote site that displays
>     multiple windows controlled by a program at the central site?
> 
> 2.  Is it possible to have one or more of those windows be shared among
>     two or more remote workstations?

Yes, both are possible with the X window system, since one of the goals of
the X design was network (in general, communication path) transparency.  To
see a demo of this sort of thing, try out wscrawl, a program which was
posted to the Usenet newsgroup comp.sources.x a few months ago, and is
available from the usual archives via anonymous ftp (I got it from
uunet.uu.net).

Wscrawl allows multiple users on multiple workstations (any one of which or
none of which might be the computer running the program) to share a window
in which they all can draw and type text.  When one user resizes the
window, it gets resized for all.  Etc.


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