Web interface to Collanos

[colas]

Hi,
I think a web interface to Collanos would be a great step in easing its integration with other tools.
I guess that you would not have to provide a full web-based client, but just having a way to have
URLs reffering to "things" (documents, but also workspaces, discussions, tasks, post notes, ... basically all Collanos objects) could do the job at first. This would provide, IMHO, 2 really important functionalities:

[1] linking: one could link to Collanos spaces from calendars, wikis, sharepoints, emails, and all kind of existing
web/intraweb apps.
A quick way to do it could be via new protocols in URL like collanos://foo/bar/gee, launching a collanos helper
app locally. Or just a webdav view to see collanos workspaces as folders and objects in it as documents.

[2] searching: one could thus use any web search engine, or desktop search engine to search collanos workpace by crawling these URLs:
instant high quality search for the users with no specific work from your part :-)

Actually, you can see this as an important features of the p2p apps: most of these "rich clients" evolve a web interface providing a subset of the rich client, as either part of the main rich client that embeds a web server,
as an addon, or if the client provides an API, this web interface can be build by the community on top of this API. (or the web interface can provide this API as a REST or web services API...)
Take for instance emule, which has a web interface
http://www.emule-project.net/home/perl/help.cgi?l=1&topic_id=118&rm=show_topic
utorrent WebUI http://forum.utorrent.com/viewtopic.php?id=14565
swing plugin of azureus http://azureus.sourceforge.net/plugin_details.php?plugin=webui
etc, etc, ... you get the idea: rich p2p clients really benefit from web interfaces!

The trick of course is to start this work incrementally, just aim to "URL-ize" things at first, maybe for API use
rather than human consumption, not aim for a full all-singing, all-dancing javascript/flah/applet implementation
of a full clone of the rich client that would be impossible to do properly anyways.

Anyways, Collanos is really a great idea, and is already in an impressive state, keep on the good work!

[colas]

cool, I just found out that a web interface was in the work:
http://blog.collanos.com/index.php/2007/03/01/glimpsing-into-the-future-of-collanos/

[Franco Dal Molin]

Thanks for all your ideas and links. Definitely good input. Our main direction is to gradually "open" Workplace while keeping it a secure, invitation-only application for small dispersed teams. We want to stay away from the "public P2P music/video sharing" space. Opening the Collanos platform means:

- Making it accessible (Outside-in):
Our strategy is to roll out a hosted permanent peer (a premium service) for users to extend workspaces with this "always-on" aspect. Main goals include guaranteeing content replication for mobile teams and access via web browser like you described. We didn't plan of adding a web server directly to every Workplace client, but rather on the permanent peer side. We'll consider the also the client-side option! Regarding search, we plan to offer this on the desktop side as well. If we can make all our workspaces appear on the OS level like if they were file system folders, this would do the trick for Desktop search technologies.

- Aggregating resources (Inside-out):
Workspaces are essentially context places for teams. We want to evolve towards offering smarter objects to aggregate existing outside data and services. In the Web 2.0 world there are so many great services "in the cloud", but they are often stand-alone and leading to fragmentation. Workplace should offer a place to easily aggregate these services.

- Marketplace/Network:
Collanos is not about sharing content anonymously, but about connecting people and team collaboration. The business networking aspect is also very important. Our central directory offers another means to be "open" by giving members the option to publish their user profiles.  Using tags for Haves and Wants, and maybe even tagging workspaces could be great ways to connect with others. Essentially this should be a marketplace for professional teams and individuals.

We'll soon publish a bit more details about our roadmap.

[Catapault]

You might want to consider using LogMeIn (www.logmein.com) which a free fully featured remote login access. Now you can utilise Collonos on your local computer, still maintain the local integrity of your data yet access it from anywhere.

A good combination to use until such utility is added to Collanos.