As I’m not English native-speaker (and I’m usually writting my entries in very late night) my thoughts can sometimes be very, er… difficult to decipher. Because of this, as I promised, I’m posting better and explanation of Lost Scrolls.
And, starting today, we’ll introduce new idea to Herald ;-)
Yesterday (when I was in International Institute of Theoretical Physics actually ;-)) Matt J tried to find out what Lost Scrolls are in his post. He done very good job in fact, with one exception - he was faster than me in posting my own ideas, I don’t know how he get them ;-)
Name “Scroll” is strictly connected with “Herald”, as heralds used scrolls to announce their information (scrolls were “sources of information” to Heralds). Therefore, Scroll is more like column, source of information than whole page - but of course, one Scroll can take whole page providing only one essay or ten news - it’s up to you.
“Lost Scrolls” are Scrolls from sites that simply don’t use RSS extensively. They work like well-trained hounds - if website has RSS that contains only parts of news, you’re marking it in “Scroll Finder” (preference pane for Scrolls) and than you’re training app to find where news ends (on three-four news from RSS feed). Almost the same applies to finding “Lost Scrolls” on websites without RSS feeds - it’s a bit harder, but it’s based mostly on marking text on webpages (and yes, it’s based on diffing too).
If you need only graphics (for example Sudoku puzzle, like you can do with Web Clip), it’ll be just case of finding place you want to copy from website.
“Friendly Scrolls” are in fact scrolls published by your friends and they are available in two flavours. In first, there is “Friendly Lost Scroll” - which is simply “Lost Scroll” available to others (by Internet, Bonjour, whatever). In second, we’ve got just “Friendly Scrolls” - Scrolls that are done by you. You can build them by putting your own news, essays, posts there.
“Friendly Scroll” can be also your weblog without weblog - daily bulletin, journal, whatever - but either you’ll use Herald (eventually your own) server to keep it, or you’ll announce it through Bonjour.
“Lost Scrolls” will be available straight from app interface (they are really needed by almost everyone), as “Friendly Scrolls” will be incorporated mostly to new ideas.
However, management will be done FULLY by “Scroll Finder” - in pane on left, you’ll have sorted list of feeds you can drop, continuusly updated with main Herald server (and Bonjour network). So do not worry about dozens of windows. For most of the time you’ll see one windows, without any pane. Sometimes, there will be pane and preference windows. Rarely, there will be more than two.
Now, time for two new ideas - Kiosk and Scribble.
Kiosk, as you can safely assume from name, is kiosk. You can find your newspaper there. And edition about Macs. And this one about politics. And this one made completely with Friendly Scrolls and Scribbles. And newspapers from your friends, either Bonjour ones or downloaded from Herald website. Newspapers in Kiosk can be done by you (with your own articles), by your friends, or you can even set random one. You can also create your newspaper just by tearing pages from other Kiosk newspapers (especially those with “Friendly Scrolls”) and adding them to your own. So, if you teared page with “Friendly Scroll” and “Macworld Scroll”, they will be updated with this exact sources of information.
I haven’t decided about look of Kiosk yet, but I think that look of machine selling newspapers (and sweets) would be really great. And there is place for a LOTS of Core Animation :-)
Scribbles.
Lets assume, that you’ve got great essay from NYT, but you do not agree completely with it. Take pen (or cursor), scribble on it, write your own thoughts on margins, colour whole areas, draw suns and flowers and submit it - as a part of newspaper (in case your subscriber has got the same article in newspaper, Scribble can be merged as addition to it) or as independent, “Friendly Scroll”.
In perfect world, in Kiosk would have additional feature. Stay tuned! ;-)
I know it’s kind of complicated without mock-ups - but I promise, they’re coming very soon!
First window you’ll see after starting app will be kiosk (or your default newspaper). Than, you can choose your newspaper or just start to read it. In case you want to tear page, you are litteraly tearing it and dropping to clipper - and there it waits until you’ll be able to add it to newspaper. That’s all.
In this way creation of newspaper has been “teared” to two stages - at first you’re dragging and dropping your favourite Scrolls. And you may stop here, and use newspaper only in this way.
But, you can socialize yourself.
You can tear pages out from friends’ newspapers, add scribbles, just play.
And yes, there will be counter for every user (about usage of his published scrolls/newspapers).
Keep in mind, that those names are like iTV - only codenames (I even think that at the end, there will be no difference between certain kinds of scrolls than icons).
