COCOON: COmmunicating Calendar Objects Over a Network

• An extensible message system that allows individuals and groups to display/send/receive messages. In some ways the system is like zwrite, but it is extensible under user control and across networks.

  Briefly, a participating user might have a window open in which messages are displayed, or the window might pop up when a message comes in. Self-registering groups can participate by broadcasting messages to the group as well as to specified individuals. Messages will be composed using some editor -- either a crude text widget or something more complex.

• A Calendar Manager/Display system that has several levels of functionality.
  • Calendars can be printed for arbitrary months and years in a variety of formats. Years should range from 1900--2100. Formats might include HTML, Postscript, ASCII, with others added later. Calendars can be displayed in a weekly, monthly, yearly and other (e.g., semester) formats.

  • Calendars should support appointment scheduling with several different kinds of appointments, e.g., one-time, weekly, every day, monthly, every other Wednesday, full-moon, and so on. Users should be able to add, alter, delete appointments with other functions possible.

  • A protocol should be designed and implemented that allows users to share calendars or view each other's calendars.

    For example, it should be possible for a user to allow different classes of user to view her calender, or to view selected parts (e.g., some parts might be designated as private, or group readable for different groups, or publically readable).

Groups

This project offers great possibilities for distribution of work. The design should be modular enough to facilitate dividing tasks among the members of the group. That should not be difficult to do.

Each member of the group should be designated for one or more group roles. Some roles that must be filled:

• leader(s) - one, preferably two, people designated to coordinate group meetings, ensure that load is properly balanced, and have a vision of where the project is going.
• CLANG representative (inter-group liaison) - one person who acts as this group's representative on the working group to design a common calendar language. This working group must agree on a clear definition of the calendar language used by all groups. (First and foremost, CLANG must decide on an appropriate name for the calendar language.) The scope of this working group may expand in the future to include other inter-group projects, such as working on designing, finding, and installing software that all groups will use; developing standards for user-interfaces that all groups might want to follow; etc.
• librarian - responsible for managing all documents, including source code,web documents, revision control expert, test plan, design doument, final documentation, coding standards
• experts - responsible for being familiar with an aspect of the project which every member does not need to know intimately. Examples: HTML expert, PostScript expert, AWT expert.
• programmer - everyone in the group is a programmer.

Schedule