[AG-TECH] Date: Fri, 11 Jun 2004 09:48:08 +0100

[Ivan R. Judson]

Hi Adam,

This looks like a very cool project with exciting goals. I'm glad to see 
the participants are pretty familiar names, so it should be easy to get up 
and running quickly.

>  o Visual identification of "active" window (the window(s) in which
>    someone is speaking) based on output from RAT.

As Robert has already mentioned, he is working on this; the Australian 
group is also working on this with their VP tool. It's an interesting 
enhancement, you might want to coordinate work with these other folks. 
Perhaps you could all come up with some set of preferences related to 
window highlighting that can be generalized.

>  o A means to start/control VNC from within Access Grid, and possibly
>    associate a VNC session with a venue.
> 
>    - Does anyone know of any previous attempts to integrate aspects of
>      VNC, as opposed to just running it side-by-side with AG? I've noticed
>      something called VenueVNC in CVS, but I don't know what stage this is
>      at, and what functionality it has.

We have a version of vnc partially integrated now, in fact the client 
software is distributed with AGTk 2.2. The server has not been released 
yet, but we're working on that too. Hopefully by the end of July we'll 
have the server out and available for people to use.
 
>  o A means to easily "moderate" an Access Grid session so that a chair
>    person could easily mute/change the volume of the different audio
>    streams involved in the session. These changes could be broadcast
>    to all sites.

This is an open area, I'd be happy to see you all working on this and 
letting us know what works and what doesn't. We've been calling this 
functionality the operators panel, and it will likely include more than 
just audio controls. But go ahead and start this and let us know what you 
get done.

>  o Improvements to integration of a whiteboard tool with 
AG. 
> 
>    - I know that various shared-whiteboard tools are already
>      available, so I don't know to what extent there's anything to be
>      done on this subject. However, I know that here at EPCC we don't
>      regularly use such software and I think that many people would
>      find it useful. If anyone has any experience of using such tools
>      and has identified any short-comings on which we could work, I'd
>      be interested to hear.

This would also be a great thing to see done. 

>  o A (web-based?) tool to share an agenda or tick-list for a meeting.
> 
>    - I guess something like this could maybe be done with the help of the
>      shared browser.

I don't see the point of a web based version, an integrated AG2 shared 
application would be interesting.
 
> Unfortunately none of us could make it over the pond for the AG retreat
> this time, as it would have been a good time to meet people and find out
> about what's going on, but I hope all of you who are there are having an
> interesting and fun few days!

That's too bad, but watch ag-tech and ag-announce for announcements, 
there's a fall event in Sophia, France this september. Perhaps you could 
make it to that.


--Ivan