Compared to last week, it was pretty quite here this week. The number of hits on the test server have dropped significantly, though we are still getting a steady stream of people checking out both webScheduler and webGIS. Hits on the later point out the need to update this application. There have been a number of errors coming in with it. Most of the errors are caused by its incomplete nature and attempts to find files that no longer exist or have moved. We apologize for these problems and hope to have them fixed shortly.

Early in the week, I went over some of the bug reports on webScheduler and realized that it had some major problems, especially for people with systems that did not use a US date format. The global nature of the web never ceases to amaze me. This points out an important consideration in web application design, remember that your target audience is global. The bug fixes went quickly, and are currently running with the demo. They have not made it into the download version, so I would avoid it for now. I also spent part of the week simplifying the scripts in webScheduler and implementing a method for tracking long (> 24 hr.) events. I am hoping to get these improvements made over the weekend or early next week.

I also spent sometime playing with some ideas that could be implemented into Collaborator or similar applications. I found out that you can wrap an HTML form around existing HTML text. As a result, you should be able to take HTML from any source, wrap a form that lets you or an other user edit that HTML text and then update the text onto your server. This could be a good way of allowing people without HTML experience to edit web documents. There are several applications to this that I will be looking at in the future. On other news related to Collaborator, Userland, the makers of Frontier, have announced that next week, they will release tools that allow development of "Large Dynamic Sites with Lots of Authors". I will be looking at these tools to see how they relate to the Collaborator idea.

There is no real progress to report on webGIS, other than a few minor bug fixes on the current system. I will keep you posted on its progress.

There are a few other tools that I have been working on that relate more to web site and web application development than anything else. FormObjects are a suite of tools that simplify generating buttons, text input boxes, popup menus, etc. in Frontier. I have started using them in my current projects, and they really speed development. I have also been putting together scripts that help configure Analog, the application that I am using to generate web server statistics on my web sites. In this, I have been employing form templates to speed development and allow multiple configuration options and appearances from a single CGI script. As always, I will keep you posted on my progress with these tools.

Finally, I added a number of new sites on the Links Elsewhere page. These include a search engine for the Library of Congress, and a number of sites to get weather information and images. Enjoy.