Re: using croquet as an interaction platform for issue tracking ???

Interesting project!  I'll base my comments (inline, below) on what  
is in the public code repository -- available now to developers  
(http://hedgehog.software.umn.edu:8888/), and undergoing testing for  
inclusion in a pre-loaded image for the next distribution.

These are my opinions. I don't speak for anyone (regardless of  
signature).

On Jan 10, 2007, at 3:35 AM, Hussayn Dabbous wrote:

Yes.  The complete scenario could be prototyped entirely in the "KAT  
demo" in the Software Developer's Kit, from within the system as you  
are using it, without any programming at all. A closed, proprietary,  
specialized, branded, and tuned application could then be built using  
the SDK, and delivered as you see fit.

>
> 1.) Is it possible to create a custom croquet containing our own  
> avatars instead of the
>      original ones coming with the Croquet sdk ?

Yes. Even as they exist now, several of the demos, including the KAT,  
provide the ability to change avatars.

+ Some of the demos (including KAT), provide the ability to load  
arbitrary .ase format models (programatically or interactively).
+ There is code in the repository (that I have not used myself), that  
also loads arbitrary .vrml format models.
+ Previous internal versions of what has become the KAT demo allowed  
you to interactively select anything in the world any "wear" it as  
your avatar.
and...
  - Two of the demos, Sailing and Simple Demo, allow you to  
interactively load an articulated Poser avatar such as those used in  
Second Life, and assign specific motions to it for walking, standing,  
typing, etc.


> Can we also remove the demo worlds and
>      just keep a template for the customer-room? Such that we can  
> let our customer
>      download the Croquet viewer, start it and get right to where  
> we want him to go
>      without learning anything about croquet, just jumping in and  
> start with the intended
>      application ?

Yes. You can program your application to connect to any world you like.

The "Croquet viewer" as you call it, is actually a complete and quite  
malleable development and delivery environment called Squeak. You can  
interactively define whatever applications, buttons, controls,  
instructions, etc. that you like, save it, and ship the result.

I think it is instructive to see how you could interactively create a  
complete concept-to-delivery prototype for your scenario. Using the  
SDK (either the pending version or the currently available one after  
updating by you from the repository),

1. Start the KAT demo. When prompted for a place to connect to, do  
not connect to any public commons (which is not available yet, prior  
to the release). Instead,  just enter a blank address. The demo will  
just run locally on your machine.

2. The world your machine will build is mostly empty except for some  
portals. Most of these are to empty worlds. One is the standard demo  
world. Delete the portals you don't want.  Interactively add and  
arrange the stuff you do want.

3. Cache the current version of all the worlds onto your disk, using  
the 'Admin' menu.

4. Distribute your version of the SKD. You do not need to distribute  
the cache.

5. To run in "production," start your copy as in steps 1 and 2. It  
will load your worlds from your cache. Leave that machine running.

6. Tell everyone else to start as in 1, but for step 2, give them the  
address of the machine you use in step 5.

There are engineering issues, of course, but these are the essentials.

>
> 2.) Is it possible to efficiently connect Croquet viewing portals  
> with a Webapplication
>      running in the same domain as Croquet runs in ?

I'm getting this question confused with 3 and 7, below. Can you clarify?

>
> 3.) Is it possible to connect a Croquet Viewing portal with a  
> terminal program, i.e. putty ?

Yes.

The core technology for this is a class called TEmbeddedApp. There  
are several examples in the SDK of how you can program various kinds  
of embedded applications. The KAT demo let's you interactively create  
two kinds:

+ A simple text panel from the underlying Squeak environment. What's  
really happening is that each Croquet participant receives the same  
input (mouse and keyboard) for the text panel, which is passed on to  
a 2D Squeak text window "outside" of Croquet, and the result  
displayed within Croquet. The Croquet code built on top of  
TEmbeddedApp manages the state of the text panel within Croquet, so  
that anyone joining late can get the correct state for their local  
Squeak.

+ A full Virtual Network Computing (VNC) client viewer, connecting to  
an external server. The VNC client is also built in 2D Squeak, but  
maintains its own separate TCP Socket (outside of Croquet) to the  
common external VNC server.  In this case, the shared session state  
is maintained by the VNC server, and the Croquet code built on top of  
TEMbeeddedApp deliberately avoids replicating input to the embedded  
app (the remote VNC server) so that you don't get multiple characters.

Your Putty terminal example is somewhat between these two. But since  
VNC is a superset of what you need, it's a good way to prototype  
something.

For example, you could display a Web browser with an issue tracker in  
one, and a terminal emulator in another. You could also use the  
simple text panels as a free-form issue tracker, or later build  
something more specific that would be programmed to communicate  
separately with Scarab or other programs.

>
> 4.) Is it possible to trigger a local program from Croquet (i.e.  
> popping up a local putty
>      window, or a browser) when grabbing at something in the  
> Croquet-world?

Yes.

Yes. One of the Croquet architects is also an architect of a major  
new graphics and windowing system for Squeak, called Tweak. Three of  
the demos (KAT, Sailing, and Simple) all use Tweak to provide a  
conventional menu bar as well as context menus for objects.

Tweak in Croquet has its own cross-platform default look and feel  
that is not quite Windows nor Mac nor Gnome nor KDE, etc. You can  
customize this through programming.

You can also programmatically define your own button arrangements for  
the flat window panels that you see in Croquet. For example, the KAT  
demo windows are deliberately missing the camera button that appears  
on window panels in the other demos. Some of the demos also have a  
slightly different or missing 'dock' that appears at the bottom of  
the Croquet display when you move your mouse there, etc.

> It would even be nice when i could simply start
>      an individual Croquet-world in a separate window instead of  
> within the Croquet-sdk. Is
>      that possible ?

This is not my area, but I don't see why not, with work. As is,  
though, you can easily program the Croquet display to be any portion  
of the Squeak application, including the entire application window or  
even full screen. I think all of the demos will let you interactively  
change them to full screen, but they differ in how you do so.

>
> 6.) Is Croquet already stable and mature enough so that we can  
> build such an app
>      around it and use it in production scenarios ?

I feel so, but there are several dimensions to consider:

* Look and feel: as discussed.

* Reliability: The general SDK has a number of known issues. But your  
application is considerably more constrained than a general demo or a  
public environment like Second Life. This allows you to test  
throughly and guard against any specific problems you find.
   For the core of Croquet, my own expectation is that if you develop  
this yourself, you will run into bugs during development, but that  
there is nothing you will not be able to fix yourself or work around  
such that your customers will not encounter bugs. With good  
conventional quality control techniques, I think the engineering of  
the Croquet SDK platform is such that your customers will find it far  
more reliable than most other commercial applications.  However, I  
feel that it is only with the current code base that this has become  
the case -- there were reliability issues in earlier development  
versions in previous years that I, for one, was not experienced  
enough to avoid in our pilot-project deployments.

* Repeatability/Deployability: The Squeak core is phenomenally  
portable and consistent on a very wide variety of platforms and  
configurations of those platforms. Croquet also uses surrounding  
technologies that are not implemented completely within Squeak/
Smalltalk. For example, it is dependent on OpenGL and OpenAL, which  
requires correct configuration of drivers, libraries and such that  
can vary from one machine to another.  Webcam video or other add-ons  
require "squeak plugins" that vary from one computer platform to  
another. Supporting these over a large and arbitrary deployment base  
may require special care.

* Support: Being completely open source, with a talented developer  
community, I feel that you are much more likely to get issues  
addressed as you need than in a closed commercial product. However,  
resources are often not  immediately available for specific non-core  
fringe technologies, such as platform-specific plugins.

* Performance: LAN performance and the performance of all other  
Croquet demo objects have always been good.  I am only now doing the  
first tuning of WAN performance for the KAT demo, which was certainly  
not acceptable before.  Similarly for the VNC panels.  However, I  
believe that there are private/commercial applications of Croquet  
that have excellent WAN performance.

* Security: If you and your customers are running on Windows, or as a  
browser plugin in Internet Explorer, then Croquet security is not  
relatively an issue. Nonetheless...   Croquet traffic is encrypted in  
a manner that I believe is roughly equivalent to SSL. The SDK  
includes a simple username/password session login, that is simply  
hardcoded in all the demos.  Assuming you trust your customers and  
vice versa, I think your scenario is quite secure if you build  
something with a secure session login.  (This version of the SDK is  
NOT secure in an absolute sense for open arbitrary communication  
among untrustworthy peers, but is probably no more so than other  
applications of similar scope.)

>
> 7.) Is it possible to create a plugin which runs Croquet within a  
> browser
>      (namely iexplorer-6 and firefox) or does such a plugin already  
> exist ?

Yes, this is possible. A Squeak plugin for Windows  browsers already  
exists, and several of us have used this in earlier versions with  
good results. I understand that there is also now a Squeak plugin for  
Macintosh browser, but that it may or may not have issues displaying  
the OpenGL graphics that Croquet depends on.

>      Just curious: Would it be feasible to create an eclipse-plugin  
> for the
>      Croquet-viewer ?

What is the usage scenario?

>
> 8.) How do two Croquet-worlds communicate with each other  
> technically, i.e. do we have to open
>      specific ports on our firewalls to allow interactions ? Or  
> does Croquet use port 80 for
>      underlaying communications ?

On a WAN, one machine must be able to accept multiple connections on  
a port that you (as a programmer) specify.  Everybody else must be  
able to reach that one port, but they themselves can be behind  
firewalls, NAT, etc.

(In the discussion lists you may see that LAN also does some  
broadcasting for discovery, and other versions have done hole-
punching and used additional ports. But this is not relevant to your  
use case.)

External applications (VNC, putty, etc.) do what they do separately.

Your scenario also calls for voice and perhaps video. These are  
handled in the demos as ordinary Croquet traffic. No additional ports  
are involved. However, other specialized and tuned applications might  
use additional channels for these.

>
> 9.) Is there any published time schedule for the ongoing  
> development in Croquet ?

No.

>
> 10.)Are there already developers around Croquet who may be  
> contacted for helping to realise
>      such a project ?

Yes.

Julian Lombardi ([hidden email]) is forming the non-profit Croquet  
Consortium and can put you in touch with developers worldwide.

You can also solicit help on this list.

I encourage you to see if there is a commercial fit with
   http://qwaq.com
or
   http://impara.de

>
> If you have read until here, i thank you very much for taking your  
> time and i would be
> pleased to get some answers.
>
>
> best regards,
> hussayn

Please feel free to contact me,

Howard Stearns
University of Wisconsin-Madison, Division of Information Technology
+1-608-262-3724