Textbender Changes ------------------ Upcoming releases will depend on project Votorola, which relates to textbender by way of collaborative law making. 0.2.2 2007-08 Designs for an open legislative system and an open electoral system were sketched. 0.2.1 7 The project was effectively opened up. We now have a contributors page, a discussion group, a Mercurial repository, and generally improved documentation. 0.2.0 5 A clipboard transfer facility was added to the kit. This completes the functional core of textbender, bringing it to alpha. 0.1.15 pre-alpha 5 A 'reload' action was added to the page daemon, as well as other file synchronizations. Together, they allow the browser to function in tandem with a text editor. A description of editing procedures was added to the demo walk-through. 0.1.14 4 The genetic encoder was improved. It now detects duplicate genes that arise from manual editing, and corrects them. The page-daemon user applet was moved to the top edge of the browser window, where it now functions as a floating toolbar. 0.1.13 4 Chromography was added to the kit. It reveals genetic similarities among documents by tinting along a chromatic gradient, according to locus. 0.1.12 4 A branching tool was added to the kit. It serves to initialize new working documents and assign them to unique revision lines (branches) of their own. The trace algorithm for authorship/ancestry was improved. It no longer depends on detailed revision history. Authors now have the choice to work without a revision control system. The encoding of meta-data was improved to reduce document size. 0.1.11 3 A region-transfer facility was added to the kit. 0.1.10 3 An algorithm to trace authorship/ancestry of sequences was formalized. The genetic code was modified accordingly. Outstanding bugs affecting the page daemon on Windows were fixed. 0.1.9 2 A genetic encoder was added to the kit. It converts ordinary text to recombinant text. 0.1.8 2 An undo/redo facility was added to the page daemon. A popup for runtime errors was added. The platform was moved to Java 1.6. 0.1.7 1 Demo texts, boot scripts, style sheets, and instructions were overhauled. A two stage boot to inject the user's applet without pre-installing greasemonkey, and so forth, was introduced. Applets were relocated for better visibility. 0.1.6 1 JavaScript-to-Java event dispatch was overhauled in the DOM bridge. 0.1.5 1 Text highlighting was added to indicate the context of the page daemon's pop-up menu. A 'silent' mode was coded for remote pages, as a work-around for same-origin restrictions on JavaScript-to-Java messages. 0.1.4 2006-12 The structure of ancestry and authorship records was finalized in the genetic code, and formally documented. Page-load caching is now disabled in the browser, to improve handling of page exits and revisits. 0.1.3 12 A (monochromatic) sequence highlighting tool was added to the kit. It responds to user selections of text by highlighting genetically related text in other documents across the desktop. A pop-up context menu was added to control in-page tools. Shadow-point tools are now switchable on/off. 0.1.2 11 The locus-point facility was introduced. It reveals genetic similarities among multiple documents. Design was shifted to generation 3. It follows a paired-regions approach, based on a server-less architecture that piggy-backs on existing Web infrastructure, overlaying it with a peer-to-peer network, driven by user scripts and applets. <http://reluk.ca/project/textbender/a/ <http://reluk.ca/project/textbender/d/ ============================================================================= Design generation 2. 2005 - 2006 It followed a simplex-wide approach, based on client-server communications. <http://reluk.ca/project/textbender/d/_/simplex-wide-obsolete/0.0.7-emacs-demo.xht <http://reluk.ca/project/textbender/d/_/simplex-wide-obsolete/0.1.1-jaxe-demo.xht 0.1.1 Code was refactored and simplified, in preparation for the next round of prototyping. 0.1.0 7 Support was added for the Jaxe XML editor. 0.0.7 pre-alpha 6 Support was added for authorship claims. A claims generation tool (staker) was introduced. 0.0.6 5 A modeling and simulation kit was introduced. Reference simulators were coded. 0.0.5 4 Component fold.xquery was introduced. It implements an XQuery interface to the gene pool. 0.0.4 4 A full desktop toolset was introduced. It integrates with the user's text editor. A reference interface for Emacs is included. A command-line gene extractor was introduced, to extract genes from texts. The command-line for the Swing graphical tools was extended to interface with non-Java tools (Emacs). 0.0.3 2005-10 Web tools were retrofitted with improved sequence handling, in line with the Swing tools introduced earlier. Web tool (harvest.target) was introduced, as a query interface to the gene pool. 0.0.2 10 Swing graphical tools were introduced. A Web service for querying the gene pool was added. The genetic code was improved. Mark-up overhead was reduced. 2005.1 5 Bare-bones Web tools were introduced. 2005.0 4 Test release, non-functional. ============================================================================= Design generation 1. 2001 - 2003 It followed a simplex-wide approach, based on peer-to-peer wiring. Developed under the name 'EDGE' (Evolutionary Design by Genetic Engineering). It featured an integrated text editor/recombinant toolset (simplex), and peer-to-peer (population-wide) communications over Java RMI. <http://reluk.ca/project/textbender/d/_/simplex-wide-obsolete/0.0.0.14-edge-overview.html Details omitted. The original description of recombinant text (the domain of textbender) was Canadian patent application 2,340,792 (filed 2001, since withdrawn). <http://patents1.ic.gc.ca/details?patent_number=2340792 "The sooner you start coding your program..., the longer it will take..." -- Henry F. Ledgard