My Dream App - Bob Conlon

I'm a little worried

2006-09-21T14:52:50Z

And no, not about making the cut.

I’m worried about what one of the judges said about my idea - the thought that users “prefer” grids, outlines, basically - organized methods of controlling information. (He was contrasting this with my idea of being able to put cards in piles and scatter them around.)

First of all - there is not one creative person I know of that uses the “pre-organization” of data. By that - they don’t use something that is pre-structured and then find where they should put their ideas into. Ideas are scattered by nature. The ability to move them around dynamically is the step BEFORE organizing them. I know people work in different ways, but Savant Carde is not for Venn diagram/sequential outline-addicts.

Along with this—Every day I have to “de-program” university students from the 12+ years of structured, systemitized, homogenized crap they have learned in school. We make everyone fit everything into lines, grids, categories. That may be good for some, but for artists, musicians, writers, and I dare say, software developers—that is not the way to access your creativity.

My idea was never about a “real” application, it was about breaking us away from thinking so sequentially, so “alike.” More on this after the voting, along with other true confessions.

Robert
and theApplication

Summary Explanation of Savant Carde (aka Pile o' Cards)

2006-09-21T01:17:34Z

Savant Carde (aka Pile o Cards) is designed around the metaphor of cards and stacks of cards.

Cards are containers which hold information.

Stacks are groups of cards with some common purpose or identity. (A stack doesn’t necessarily have to be a single pile, which the name ’stack’ might imply, but can be
spread out in many piles, shifted and sorted by individual cards, and dragged around from pile to pile by the user.)

Each stack is made up of Info Cards, the places where information is stored. Stacks also have several special cards associated with them that define the look, behavior, and format of their Info Cards. They are:

Control Card - This card is the “foundation” of the stack. It is the access point for linking the cards (Design Card, Template Card, Action Card) that control the look, behavior, and formatting.

Design Card - This defines the “look” of the Info Cards in the stack. It may be a background, the way information is placed and displayed, or any other way the Info Cards appear to the user. This can be from a simple square, to complex field-oriented databases, to gallery style displays for images. For the advanced user, interface objects can be added to their stacks and Info Cards.

Template Card - This defines how any information dragged to the stack is filtered and formatted. Perhaps the template is for MLA standard bibliographic data. Anything dragged to that stack is filtered against that particular set of criteria. (Using what I have called AIRE, Automatic Information Recognition Engine. This is perhaps not as complex as it might seem at first glance—It is a matter of building some basic expert systems that identify the way text is formatted.)
There will be supplied a set of these AIRE Template Cards, and the user will have the ability to do create their own.
(There are many filtering possibilities here. Drag a photo, and the photo is placed, with user-selected EXIF data displayed. Or drag a website, and forum information is separated from news items and placed in their user-defined formats.)

Action Card - Each stack can have a Savant Action connected to it that can be applied to the information dragged to it, or to the Info Cards in the stack. See below for more on Action Cards

At its basic level, Savant Carde is a user-designed information storage and retrieval system. Like a database, but allowing the user to interact with the data by shifting, sorting, dragging, and doing all of those things visually using the Info Cards. (I do a lot of writing, and I really like using 3×5 cards, scattering them all over the floor and organizing my thoughts that way. I want to be able to do the same with Savant Carde.)

Savant Carde treats EVERYTHING as information, so that anything that can live on the computer can also be dragged to an Info Cards. Text, pictures, movies, songs, But also scripts, Automator actions, perhaps even applications. This brings me back to Action Cards.

Action Cards are cards which tell stacks or other cards (or parts of cards) to DO something. This might be an Applescript. Drag a stack to an Action Card and it runs an AppleScript that formats all the data into an outline and sends it to a Word or Nova Mind document. It might be an Automator action. Or a combination of things. In order to facilitate this “chaining” of actions, Savant Carde has MetaCards.

MetaCards allow the user to combine the scripts or actions of several (or many) Action Cards into one single card: a MetaCard. (If you are familiar with Reason, this is the same concept as the Combinator module.) A MetaCard is a simple way to process your stacks or cards through a series of complex steps.

Suppose you want to take an entire iPhoto library, resize all of the photos, rename them, collect them into a folder, and burn them to a CD with a list of all their EXIF information. With Savant Card, you build each of these steps with an Action Card, combine them into a MetaCard, and then drag your iPhoto library to it. Soon Toast is asking for a CD and you are watching the list of photos print from your inkjet. (There are a few other examples of what you can do like this on www.savantcarde.com, and in my forum posts. I can’t help but thinking how cool this would be at the center of my media hub.)

Super Advanced User Mode. Most of you reading this have realized that Action Cards are like programming objects, individual chunks of reusable and easy to manage “code.” Combine this with Savant Carde’s user interface capabilities and the ability to attach MetaCards to a UI elements and not just an Info Card or stack, and what you can create like this should be wetting your imagination.

HyperCard. I know some of you are not familiar with this, but many of you are. Imagine HyperCard not limited by a single “pile”—but what if you could take the cards in a stack and visually sort them and create multiple piles and have them scattered all over while you organize them. Imagine HyperCard being able to run ANY kind of script or Action, including things like PhotoShop Actions. Imagine being able to take piles of information, drag them to a card, and it filters, formats and puts it in the right place for you.

If nothing else—imagine being able to build a simple database to hold ANYTHING you want. And then being able to drag that stuff around to sort and re-order it, and do anything you want with it.

Always open for questions, criticism, and suggestions!

Robert

Tips for everyone�How to win this!

2006-09-20T04:19:40Z

Since this is basically a “Survivor” or “American Idol” style contest, I was thinking of some ways to “survive.”

1. Require all of the 1100 students in the art department where I teach to go to the site and register. Problem: I am assuming they like me enough to vote for me, probably not worth the risk.

2. Take a cue from Paula Abdul and offer sexual favors to the judges. I’m really kind of old for that, though, so I am thinking about offering party favors instead—hats and noisemakers. Probably not that effective.

3. Pretend to be friends with all the other contestants, but stab them in the back whenever possible. I’m not really sure how to stab them though. Post zillions of blog responses telling them they suck, and their application too? Release unflattering photos from their mySpace accounts? Get smokinggun.com to dig up sensationalized police reports about embarrassing legal difficulties? All of these might actually help them in the voting!

4. Be really cutesy, commercial and mainstream, and have a huge corporate media company hype me as the winner. Oh wait, this only works on the real “American Idol.”

5. Have the absolutely best idea, articulated brilliantly with magnificent prototypes to illustrate, and a positively sure-fire, can’t miss perception that this is what the consumer wants, along with marvelous, and thought-through development imperatives.
Yeah, right.

Actually - good luck to everyone!

Robert and theApplication

A tad more prototype

2006-09-19T14:28:25Z

Looking for a lot of feedback! Some of you have asked if they are giving too much—the resounding answer is “NO!” I may not have the time or expertise to sort through all of it, but every comment is helpful!

I updated a few things at http://www.savantcarde.com

Also, a few thoughts particularly on the ability to design the look of the cards at:
http://www.savantcarde.com/scpage5.html

Yes, your comments, thoughts, and suggestions are extremely helpful to me.

theApplication: And to me too.

Me: Hey, where have you been?

theApplication: Busy getting all those glamour shots taken of my interface.

Me: Well, no offense, but you look a little rough to me.

theApplication: Just give me some time….

______________________
One more thing—I want to break out of the stack of cards having to be in a “stack.” Cards can be interactively moved, piled up, grouped with other cards. They don’t have to stay in a “stack.” Writers may find this of some interest.

A horrible thought

2006-09-19T03:51:18Z

As I close the day, a horrible thought just hit me.

What do you think the chances are that MS software people are following every word here—and getting ready to “develop” what they read.

Maybe they will even have their own contest—mycopiedapp.com.

More about Savant Carde tomorrow. A few re-worked prototypes for Nathan!

Thanks for everyone’s suggesions, input, and constructive criticism. I’m having a blast. And so is theApplication.

Robert

Preliminary prototypes and examples

2006-09-18T03:07:54Z

I have some prototypes and examples up at:

http://www.savantcarde.com

Any feedback is appreciated. As well as suggestions. I am finding them more than helpful!!

Robert
(and theApplication, aka Pile o Cards, aka Savant Carde)

Hyper

2006-09-17T01:33:10Z

“OK. I am going to admit it. I loved HyperCard. I’m not ashamed to say so. We even had an intimate sexual affair at one time. I guess it’s OK now to say that after all these years…”

from “A HyperCard Orange”

“Pile o Cards” (rapidly becoming “Savant Carde”) must have crept out of HyperCard somehow, because people keep asking me to compare them, or making comparisons. With this I am flattered.

Savante Carde shares the “card” metaphor, it uses the idea of how we interact with cards—stacking them, sorting them, writing things on them. What I always thought was cool about HyperCard was how you could attach scripts to anything on a card and it could interact with other parts of the stack, or even outside applications.

My initial concept was to take this to the extreme. Keep the simplicity of the “card”—but extend the idea of what the card could hold (the “information”) and how it could interact with everything else.

Hyper in this context means “non-sequential”—something we have all grown used to by using the web. Or perhaps what has happened is we have been fooled into thinking we are acting non-sequentially. You see, everything that happens is sequential, that’s just the way that we experience time. And for some reason it always flows in this one direction.

What we really mean is that we can make a choice to jump in and out of a particular sequence of thought. Rather than non-sequential, it is more like stream of consciousness. We move along, and take detours, and side trips, and wander. That is really what the web experience is about, and it is what we tend to think of as “hyper” (interesting double meaning…)

Now, what does this have to do with Savant Carde? I want to hold onto the natural comparison with HyperCard, I think it is valid and helpful. But I also want to push past this web-based notion of what is “non-sequential” and see if we can actually discover some new ways of understanding that. After all, the smallest pieces of matter in our universe may be jumping in and out of time even as we speak—actually existing non-sequentially. Theoretically, everything could actually be made of one single bit of material, which just happens to be able to exist everywhere because it is outside of time.

Not necessarily good material for explaning a software concept, but damn fine sitting-around-on-a-saturday-night-and-expanding-your-brain kind of stuff.

Robert

What's a meta for?

2006-09-16T02:29:02Z

I sent theApplication out to get pizza, so I have some time to articulate without it’s constant interruptions.

First, thanks to Amorya, step, Kobayashi, wynlyndd. I really appreciate your input and I am trying my best to take your suggestions to heart.

I think I may have a new name for “Pile o Cards”—SavantCarde.

Savant - a person of profound or extensive learning; learned scholar
Avant Garde - the advance group in any field, esp. in the visual, literary, or musical arts, whose works are characterized chiefly by unorthodox and experimental methods
Card - a usually rectangular piece of stiff paper, thin pasteboard, or plastic for various uses, as to write information on or printed as a means of identifying the holder
(all from dictionary.com)

So: Savantcarde. or SavantCarde. or Savant Carde. Anyone have any thoughts about this?

Going through this naming process has helped me to coalesce my thoughts a little better about what the application is:

Cards are a good metaphor. As long as we understand the idea of them containing anything which can reside on the system. (text, media, applications, scripts, etc.)

Savant means that the cards are smart! They can recognize types of data and sort through information. (automatic information recognition engine (AIRE) - attention: marketing people.) This means they can intelligently filter addresses, bibliographic information, tabular data. In this regard “stacks” of cards can function as databases, with really simple front ends but the ability to organize and sort data intelligently.

But this also means that cards can contain all different kinds of scripts, Automator actions and application specific “hooks” (thanks wynlyndd) which are just waiting to process the information on other cards or stacks of cards.
Again, if we remember that “information” means anything that can reside on the system, we start to break out of the database analogy, although that seems to me a good underlying foundation.

Avant Garde. I really want this to remain experimental and somewhat abstract. (The application, not my description of it.) I am most interested in how this can help to push the creative process. For instance, I would love to be able to do things in Adobe Illustrator, and have SavantCarde be sending bits of it to Photoshop and screwing with it somehow. I also envision this as a non-sequential writer’s tool (or brainstorming tool) with the ability to hold and link a variety of information and find new ways that it would connect. (And then stick it into Word or Inspiration as an outline) I also am excited in the way I can see this as a useful media hub, for processing, organizing, keeping a library.

More to come.
And your feed back is much appreciated.

Pizza here, gotta go.

Robert

I have to make this quick...

2006-09-14T21:29:12Z

Robert isn’t around, but I decided to go on his blog by myself. Now, at least he can’t interrupt me.

Here is how I see myself today: Whatever any other application can do, I can do better. Well, maybe not better. But I can be the application that every other application likes working with the best.

I hold information, and then I tell everything else what to do with it. I thought of some examples yesterday. Here is another one. Suppose you want to take all the photos you have in a folder or iPhoto library, and burn them to a disk. Sure, there some pretty easy ways to do that. But what if you wanted to size all of them, put information at the bottom of each picture, and then create a label or printout with their names. (Or create a database of their EXIF data.)

Well, you could create a card that does all that. You drag the folder to the card, and it connects Photoshop to Word to FileMaker to Toast. In a few moments you have a new pile of cards with your resized and labeled photos, the list is printing out, and Toast is asking you to insert a blank CD.

You can probably do all of this right now in AppleScript. But I like to think of myself as a visual facilitator. I help you with all the links, and keep everything organized. And unlike AppleScript, if you decide you want to use BBEdit instead of Word to make your text and labels, you just drag it onto a card and connect it rather than Word.

Uh, thought I heard the garage door. I better go before I get caught on here.

Sincerely,
theApplication

theApplication learns to talk

2006-09-13T16:31:06Z

Me: It’s been a whole day…have you come up with a new name for yourself yet?

theApplication: No.

Me: What is the problem???

theApplication: Look, I am just beginning to understand myself, to really get a hold of what I am….

Me: Well…?

theApplication: (silence)

Me: At least tell me how you see yourself, or don’t you know that either?

theApplication: OK, OK. Here is what I see. I make connections. I organize paths of thinking in order to create something, or in order to understand something better.

Me: You’re just being more confusing…

theApplication: Lets think about the “pile o cards” idea again. You know, the name you gave me before you even knew me.

Me: Geesh…

theApplication: Imagine 3 x 5 cards, or post-it notes, or any other metaphor you can come up with for scraps of information. Now take this idea of information a bit farther, because I suspect most of you, when you think of 3 x 5 cards, envision only hand-written words and ideas. But imagine drawing on them too, keeping an artist’s sketchbook. Or even taking a photo and pasting it down, or having it hold a song you like, or movie, or any other media you can think of. Then on another card you have a way to manipulate those things, like an Automator action or Applescript. And another card might be holding an application, like Photoshop or InDesign. The script would tell the application to take this other card and make a layout, or set the white balance.

Me: And that…

theApplication: Hey, don’t interrupt! You could take cards that have your favorite movies on them, put them in a pile, and another card might create a database with their titles and stars by linking to the internet and looking all that up. Then the pile gets moved automatically over to another card which links them to your media hub. Wanna watch a movie? Sort through the cards (which now have all the IMDB info on them) and toss the one you want on another card that sends it to your HDTV. While you watch you can be writing notes on another set of cards, shuffle them up and put them in another pile, where they open up a word processor and create an outline. Then you….

Me: Hold on, hold on! That’s enough for now. Take a break, you seem to be getting a little too excited. And I hate being around excited concepts that have just reached self-awareness.

theApplication: (slightly out of breath) OK.

Me: We’ll keep working on a new name now…

Nebulous

2006-09-12T12:22:38Z

Here I am, with another “nebulous” idea. But ambiguity is a good thing—it lets you think, it lets you participate, it lets you retain your own freedom of who you are and how you interpret something.

My application idea and I had a little talk. It still hasn’t decided on a new name, but it does feel a slight bit of stress over having an ambiguous identity. I told it everything would be OK. It said, “Yes, perhaps, but how would you feel if no one knew you. If no one understood you? If everyone just thought you were ‘nebulous’ and…”

I interrupted. “Well, then just do something about it. Who are you?”

It sat silently for a while, then said, “I’m not sure. But give me a day to mull it over.”

A new identity

2006-09-12T05:28:03Z

My application needs to change it’s name. I am thinking of asking it what it wants to be called. To do so I have to introduce it to reality a little further, I am not sure it can understand the concept of identity quite yet. Perhaps it will surprise me, but right now it is not even a single 1 or a single 0.

Later today we will have a talk. Maybe it will have some questions for me, and we can talk about what existence means. And identity. And names.