Hello! After a brief respite to organize a phenomenal art show and enjoy the changing seasons, we are back in action for the latest work from the Rural Design Collective! We learned from our demos that we gave at our Launch Party and have been ironing out a few bugs based on feedback.

After much deliberation, we have decided to package our previous summer work into a new tool called the “Collection Interface Generator” (genCollectionInterface), a python application developed by Scotty Auble. We think it is exciting in that it works on the XO plus it is accessible to any person interested in creating a localized collection of public domain books. For a sneak peek, you can check out the ongoing work we are doing in the UI Lab. The pages were generated using the program which made it easy to create of custom collection based on our UI work. The metadata for the tooltips came from a .csv metadata file that Steven McKenzie created using Internet Archive advanced search, and the covers were downloaded using the Open Library API. It is a work in progress – we will be tweaking the navigation and other UI details – but we think it is really starting to come together. Our release in October will be accompanied by documentation to explain the Collection Interface Generator, as well as additional information behind our overall concept and method which has developed over time during the 2009 Summer Mentoring Program.

Levi’s work on the icon collection is outstanding – he has developed a versatile set of pictographs that work in a broad range of visual settings. This is the hallmark of a strong icon set, and a great basis of images to release into the public domain. This will be documented along with our code.

The primary usability issue that we are encountering is how to load the DjVu books into the XO Journal as fluidly as possible. There is an interstitial step when the DjVu file is loaded onto the XO and transferred to the Journal that needs to be populated with metadata in order not to disrupt the user experience (you can see this screen here from the GIAB activity). One solution we are exploring is using the embeddable bookreader from the Internet Archive. This version of the bookreader works well on the XO and enables us to emphasize collections which is central to our theme – the only drawback is that it uses JPEG2 files which was not the format we agreed upon for the SoaS solution. We can provide links to the books at the Archive as an alternative format, however, for users with an Internet connection. We will be solving that problem in the weeks ahead – Stay tuned!

Hello! Busy times at the RDC. Our Launch Party deadline is swiftly approaching, so we are working to have the best demo possible for the event. It will take place over Labor Day Weekend, September 4-7, and will coincide with an art show at Point B Studio entitled “Find Way.” This art show is the first in a three-part series, “Art in the Information Age”, and will feature artists who have elevated information visualization to an art form in their chosen medium. It is an exciting series that will build over the course of the next year, so please add us to your bookmarks!

In the Lab, we are coding a few new bits and pieces of the user interface. We decided to eliminate the top navigation bar on the collection navigation to get more content on the screen (and we will most likely eliminate it entirely so it feels more like a Sugar application). This led to the clever solution of making a touchpad widget for the icons that Levi has been working so diligently on. This builds on the constructs and motifs already established in the Sugar environment (pulldown menus, intuitive icons, icon docks), while introducing new possibilities. We think it works! There is a bit of a challenge to ensure it is not obscured by the icon dock frame that is native to Sugar, but we have taken that into account and are designing accordingly.

Scotty and Steven will use this as a template to programmatically generate the pages for the collection that will be distributed on the sticks. There are still a few details to hash out before we get to that point, but when Levi and I get there, Scotty and Steven will be ready to take it the rest of the way (Teamwork!). For our demo next week, we will most likely go with a simple HTML list just to illustrate our concept.

As I mentioned before, we plan to extend our work into October, bearing in mind that each of us has other work to do and the changing of the seasons brings on a new tempo. We are all pretty detail-oriented (and plus we just like working together), so we agree that there is more work to do before we are ready for production. This has been an amazing mentoring season, and we have grown and gained knowledge from each other by having this opportunity to create beautiful and meaningful things.

We officially declare the 2009 Rural Design Collective Summer Mentoring Season a resounding success! w00t!