Week passed since last post. Week full of running from building to building, from lecture to lecture. I already don’t remember when I slept for over 6 hours ;-)
I also found, that Herald topic was one of the most popular finalist app topics. I hope, that it’s good sign! :)
So, a few words on technology that (in case of success) will be used to make Herald works as advertised.
Interface will be mostly based on dragging and dropping. Scrolls - the sources of information - will be either RSS feeds (and all their siblings, like ATOM or XML), independent files (like RTFs or JPGs) or Lost Scrolls.
Last one looks quite mysteriously, so let’s have a closer look.
Lost Scrolls are in it’s idea a bit similair to Web Clips, and they will be available in three flavours.
Lost Scrolls for Graphics are almost equal to original Web Clip - just look for the place on website you want to have in your newspaper - like Sudoku puzzles, weather (if you really don’t want Hearld formatting of weather), Peanuts or Garfield. Check it and Scroll Finder will do the rest.
Lost Scrolls for Text are mostly based on app training.
If website publishes in RSS only parts of information (rest is available on website), just check necessary box in Scroll Finder (preference pane for Scrolls) and Herald will be trained by you on a first few news. If website doesn’t have even RSS feed, you’ll be asked to show where top news are placed, then during training Herald will learn how to download news from this site.
Friendly Lost Scrolls will be Scrolls made by you or your friends, available thorugh Herald website or Bonjour networks - it can be your school’s daily bulletin or your weblog (without whole weblog structure).
Surprisingly, you’ll find most of necessary Lost Scrolls already built in to Herald ;-)
After all, Hearald will feature a few eyecandy and useful features, using new Apple techniques. So, here we go.
- microfilms library of newspaper past issues, based mostly on Leopard’s Core Animation (however, available in normal flavour for Tiger too)
- news converted to speech by Alex’s voice, iPod time! (of course, news can be also mixed with iTunes music, even with today’s Top 3 from Store)
- if you want to use Herald as bulletin board in your school, company, family, download friend’s issues, whatever - Bonjour networks will be very helpful
- for looking through past issues Spotlight will do as well
- do not forget about Dashboard, iCal and To-Dos service (your To-Dos as Very Big Headlines)
Herald will be fully automatable and usable as system service. It’s worth to add, that Herald will be very elastic program.
For first, after creating your newspaper, and running Herald in standard mode, you’ll not see anything more than… newspaper (and a few icons built into newspaper of course - it’s e-paper ;-)).
As every feed will be placed in certain place on page, you’ll be able to choose news to print from built in RSS reader, that will look just like additional page in your newspaper. Thanks to this, it’ll be the nicest looking RSS reader at once.
Issues of newspaper will be readable on screen (if you really want to), printable on normal paper, exportable to iPod (with photos, comic stripes, at as chapter images), cellphone/PDA (most important is being compatibile with XHTML). If you have your own server (or you’re willing to pay small fee), you can autmatize uploading HTML version of your newspaper, so it can be always fresh in your cellphone or PDA.
I hope, that in case of winning we will be able to make agreements with at least a few newspaper for fully working (or even exclusive) paid feeds (I’m yet thinking if it should be subscription to free reader or just included as fee for app), with first page big photos and essays.
You’ll be always available to change newspaper layout, download other users layout, simply - do magic with layout and news. Thanks to Cocoa, programmers and Apple - it’ll be easy as 1-2-3.
That’s all of technobabble.
Next ideas and mockups will be posted soon.
So - see you then!
