Wiki/Report of Meeting 2023-08-31
Report of Meeting 2023-08-31
Present: Art Anger, Ed Gottsman, Raul Miller, and Bob Therriault
Full transcripts of this meeting are now available below on this wiki page.
1) Ed did a demo which is available on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emVBSN6EZFI including an invitation to try the tool out as part of the beta test. If you are interested you can contact edward.j.gottsman AT gmail DOT com.
2) A discussion responding to the demonstration followed. Ed is hoping for a number of users to try this out and most importantly provide feedback. Raul wondered if the download of the database could be done in the background, but Ed thought that he would like to see the reaction from users before doing too many more changes. Bob found that his downloads were stable last week when he was camping.
3) Ed asked Bob about the ways that LiveSearch might be integrated into the wiki. Bob said he was wondering if LiveSearch would make the Reference section obsolete. Further Bob wondered if Categories could be used as part of the LiveSearch to select areas of user interest. Bob also wondered if LiveSearch could be used in a wider context outside of the JQt environment, so that it became part of the browser. Ed suggested that this could be done by containerizing the LiveSearch database on a server and making that database a target of the wiki search window. Raul thought that there should be a way of tracking the order of requests so that asynchronous updates could be accommodated without overriding subsequent queries. Ed thinks that it is doable, but is not signing up for the task.
4) Ed raised the issue that SQLite is not "stemming" the results so that exact word search is required and Raul showed that there is a setting that will allow the stemming to be invoked as the database is created. Ed also hoped to find a way to have the search hits automatically highlight the result within the target page. Ed wondered if there is a way to at least indicate the pages that are hits in the navigation area. This is attractive as the results can be highlighted automatically. Bob's solution requires much more manual work, so that while it would be effective if done, it is less likely to be accomplished. Bob suggested that if the response for beta users was low that the beta test could be announced on the ArrayCast to widen the audience. It was agreed that the beta should go forward and that the new suggestions could be included as they are evaluated.
5) A discussion of Categories incorporated in the LiveSearch followed. Bob felt that the tags that had been developed organically and were flat. This means that the categorization that Bob has done is good to present information and the tags may be able to be made more effective with their inclusion in LiveSearch.
5) Bob did quick review of the Primer as it nears its renovation. There was a forum post that was made about the GUI information being out of date, which was one of the reasons that Bob undertook the renovation. In addition to the GUI information there needs to be some other changes to resources that may have changed. An example is that NuVoc has superseded the J Dictionary as a source of current information. This needs to be done so that the information in the J Dictionary is not eliminated as being old. Ed wondered if there was a need of 'more' documentation. Raul suggested that the need is for 'better'. The wiki does not remove information, but Bob thought that it was more important that navigation of the wiki steers people into the more useful areas.
6) Ed felt that there could be very useful information provided that would allow users to create standalone J applications. Ed referenced the work that Norman Drinkwater had done of how to do stand alone within JQt https://code.jsoftware.com/wiki/Guides/J9_Standalone and whether there were ways to do that with console or JHS.
7) Bob's next work after the Primer is completed is to build out the presentation of the categories in the New Look of the wiki. https://code.jsoftware.com/wiki/Category:Home
8) The meeting ended with discussions on how J could be made more popular among coders and the general public. Worth a read of the transcript if you are interested.
For access to previous meeting reports https://code.jsoftware.com/wiki/Wiki_Development
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