[ANN] IDE Development Option

[Scott Rossi]

Greetings List:

Hopefully several fixes are now working in the IDE stack manager (it's a
first attempt so there may be other issues).  The latest version is
available for playing with, via the message box, here:

  go stack url "http://www.i-view.net/tm_stack_manager.mc"

The following are some limitations and suggestions for this thing -- perhaps
other online content management systems offer features that might be worth
attempting.

If this doesn't do what we need, folks should feel free to propose alternate
management systems.

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CURRENT LIMITATIONS

Can edit only one stack from the server at a time; attempting to edit
multiple stacks will likely confuse the manager and could result in stacks
being uploaded to incorrect directories.

Only works on the topLevel topstack; not tested with palette style
topStacks.

Only works for the current MC session; if MC is quit and relaunched,
attempting to upload an edited stack will likely place the stack in the root
directory or an inappropriate subfolder.

The initial directory listing (and even uploading) will occasionally stall
for some reason (seems to be a libURL thing but could be something in my
code).  Hitting the List Files button a second time should refresh the list
properly


SUGGESTIONS

Would it be useful to list the email access of a person who has currently
checked out a stack you are interested in so you can exchange
ideas/questions?  Does it make sense that someone who is volunteering to
edit a publicly available stack must be available to the public?  (Also, an
admin [the Poohbah?] can track down any stack that has gone missing for some
time...)

Should it write a prefs folder to the hard drive to store a list of
currently checked out stacks and the path to your working folder?  This way
editing can be saved across multiple MC sessions and the requirement to
designate a working directory at each launch can be avoided.

Should a set of unrestricted directories/stacks be posted for experiments
and public testing, but which are not part of the official IDE build
library?

Other ideas?

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Thanks to those folks who pointed out the initial problems.

Regards,

Scott Rossi
Creative Director
Tactile Media, Multimedia & Design
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E: scott at tactilemedia.com
W: http://www.tactilemedia.com