There are no recorded trackback links from other weblogs.

I know we have ours on paper, but hopefully Carlo or Jay are able to scan it and put it up on the web. Until then, I will describe what we have as best my ability.

We went with a MySQL database and PHP to interact with the database (although I am sure that both the interface group and the backend group will be doing some PHP coding). We tried to make our design as flexible as possible, to allow for future additions.

One thing we havent thought of doing yet, which we should is a set of tables for authentications purposes. We should have a set of permissions so not everyone is an admin. Another way of doing this, I think as mentioned in class, is to have all the updates be emailed to one person, who therefor can update the database.

I hope this is a good start. I will see you guys at the presentation tommorow.

--mark

This mock-up is to display our ideas on the layout. We all agreed that there's too much info to show an effective snapshot of the entire timeline, so we decided to make our main navigation be organized by decades and give a 10-year view of the timeline.

We based or layout on the MSNBC 9/11 timeline. Of course it’s not an exact replica because that timeline is based on a few days and ours is over several decades. We have far too much information for the interconnected dots; it would be a tangled mess. We also decided that we wanted to use text instead of icons because we want the user to be able to see immediately what each link leads to. The user shouldn’t have to scroll over a blank icon to see what it’s about; we have too much information to make the user guess. We did agree that it would be nice to offer abbreviated notes on rollover just to give a bigger snapshot of the information; user doesn’t have to click unless he/she wants to see the full summary.

We all agreed that some flash/director elements would be nice (i.e. scrolling arrows, timeline scroll, rollover notes, etc.), but most importantly we want to keep it simple; both to create and navigate. The colors are not final, we just wanted to see something more than b/w to get a better feel of the design. We have only briefly discussed coding and how we're going to go about building the interface.

-interface group

I saw the interface and my eyes lit up in anticipation - I think we are definitely on the right track. Mark, user permissions is a good thing that we forgot about if we want people to be able to edit/submit information. Perhaps it would be best if these submissions went into a pending table for the admin to review before committing changes - just an idea.

Anyway, here is the ERD for the backend. Do not worry about the colors, they are only there to show that those are supposed to be separate lines that point to the same thing. What we have is this:

People
Person_ID
First_Name
Last_Name
Date_of_Birth
Location
Description
Occupation

Companies
Company_ID
Name
Date_of_Origin
Status
Location
Description

Events
Event_ID
Name
Date
Description

Hardware
Hardware_ID
HW_Type
Name
Release_Date
Description

Software
Software_ID
SW_Type
Name
Release_Date
Description

Influences
Object_ID1
Object_Table1
Object_ID2
Object_Table2
Comment

HW_Types (Data that could be in table)
Console
Accessory
Handheld
Add-on

HW_Types (Fields)
HW_Type_ID
HW_Type

SW_Types (Data that could be in table)
Game
Office Application
Video Editing
Audio Editing

SW_Types (Fields)
SW_Type_ID
SW_Type

Categories (Data that could be in table)
Computing in General
Music Tech
Video TV Tech
Arcades/Games
Tech Arts?

Categories (Fields)
Category_ID
Category_Label

Cat_Relations
Category_ID
Object_ID
Object_Table
Comment

The influences table is what drives everything - it is the relationship between one item and another. The Cat_Relations table is needed for things that could fit in more than one category. The software and hardware type tables are for keeping track of the different kinds of products there are - more can be added as necessary.

Based on that same design, here's what one of the item-specific pages could look like.

That design for the interface is quite good!

I think this project is really going to come together in the end! Lets make prof. Jacobs proud!

--mark

Really nice looking start. Should be reasonably functional. Couple of questions...

1. There had been talk about scaling the timeline to add more data points, or more room for busier sections of history. Do we want to break the earlier years down to different time segments like
Pre-1900, 1900-1920, etc? That might allow us more room for more data and let us add 2010.

2. Are we considering data types other than text within the database (sounds, clips) or are we relying on linking to other sites on the we b for that?

3. Are we considering simple graphic icons to help visualy categorize data beyond colors and text?

I don't have any particular answers for these, I think they are discussion points.

I've added a couple new categories to our delicious book marks, video hardware and what should have been electronic music but ended up being electronic and music ( I must be tired) For you to use as starters as we move ahead toward populating the db with content

Posted it on my blog. Old copy before we met and then chose the new lay out christian posted.

http://www.rit.edu/~kmw0567/blog/

Here's an early version of the html mockups. The sytlesheet can be found here.