CardMeeting Dispatch

Hiya CardMeeting users,

Billboards are a whole new item type that you can use for titling, look-here and legends!

I'm excited to announce that very soon (4/23 or 4/24) I will be enabling a whole new item type that you can add to your CardMeetings: Billboards! Whew, it has been a looong time since I added a substantive feature to CardMeeting, and it is high time I made something like this available.

In CardMeeting, Billboards are single lines of text that try to stay legible regardless of what level of zoom you are viewing the CardMeeting at. You can use them as titles for sections of your meeting. They can be colored with the same 6 colors that cards get as well, so the billboards can also be used to create a legend that explains what your card colors indicate. I envision billboards will also be useful for transient "look here" purposes and leaving high level notes/reminders that your peers won't miss.

If you go into your meetings now, you will not see any new Billboard feature just yet. I am not springing Billboards on you because the CardMeeting XML and Web Services have changed to support Billboards. I needed to give some advance notice to users who actively use those services for integration and backups that a switch-a-roo was imminent. Regardless of how you use CardMeeting, please take backups of your meeting data now, and then again after Billboards are enabled. I don't expect problems with data migrations, but with an upgrade of this magnitude, we can never be too careful. If you need infos on how to do backups of your meetings, please consult the CardMeeting data exchange document and refer to section 2 and especially section 2.3, "XML Exporter".

For users: How to use Billboards in your CardMeeting

Billboards are a single line of text that are supposed to be legible irregardless of zoom level. Strategically placed, these billboards can serve as a high-level roadmap for navigating and understanding your CardMeeting.

Here is a screenshot showing Billboards in action:

Billboards visible on a meeting right after loading it up

After zooming in a little, you can see the area containing the billboard is maintained and the billboard text is available in both large and small forms:

How Billboards appear when zooming in

Sidebar: I've really wrestled with how to best present this aspect of Billboards. In my limited user acceptance testing, the feedback I've gotten was that the text drawn twice is confusing. One of my primary concerns was that low vision users might be hosed if I didn't display the large form of the text. I figured they needed a way to zoom the billboard so that it was legible for them. Anyhow, please play with it when I make Billboards available, and if you have any feedback on this matter or suggestions on how I might improve it, please contact me at dave@woldrich.com. Thanks!

Anyhow, editing Billboards is very much like editing index cards. But, there are some wrinkles you need to know about. Here's a typical editing scenario:

1. Left mouse click-and-drag your mouse on and away from the billboard icon
2. A new billboard with some default text will appear under your mouse pointer, keep holding the left mouse button down and the drag the billboard to where you want it on the canvas
3. Let go of the left mouse button to drop the billboard, the editor will appear
4. Type the billboard text you want, press Enter or Esc to finish editing
5. You can delete a Billboard by dragging it to the recycle bin or by hitting the Delete key when the Billboard is selected

Notes:

• The green diamond at the bottom center of the billboard indicates its "anchor point" on the canvas.
• When zoomed in, the dash-lined box containing the enlarged billboard text is only displayed as a visual aid. You cannot edit or move the billboard by clicking on the enlarged text.
• The smaller, solid-lined billboard text box that hugs the bottom of the billboard area is what one uses to edit the Billboard. You may left mouse click once on this smaller text box at any time to call up the Billboard's editor.
• The Billboard items always display beneath the cards. Try not to occlude the billboard's surface area too much with cards, that can make it difficult to find the smaller edit control when zoomed in.

Click-and-drag a New Billboard icon to create a new Billboard

Click the smaller box to call up the Billboard editor. Drag the smaller box to move the Billboard.

For developers and power users: Changes to Web Services and CardMeeting XML Schema

As I mentioned before, the CardMeeting XML Schema had to change to support the new Billboard type. These changes had ripple effects through the SOAP and REST Web Services as well, so be aware that your service clients will also need to change.

Previous versions of CardMeeting XML were hardwired for a list of cards only, but the new CardMeeting XML sports an extensible item type system that will allow me to add more item types in the future (hopefully) without breaking older versions of the XML. Anyhow, here's what changes you need to make to upgrade any version 2 CardMeeting XML you have to the new version 3:

Version 2 CardMeeting XML:

<ns2:cardMeeting title="CardMeeting Planning" version="2" 
  xsi:schemaLocation="http://cardmeeting.com/schema/CardMeeting.xsd
                      http://cardmeeting.com/schema/CardMeeting.xsd"
  xmlns:ns2="http://cardmeeting.com/schema/CardMeeting.xsd"
  xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
    <card>
        <text>iteration one</text>
        <position y="5434.0" x="7660.0"/>
        <color name="White"/>
    </card>
    <card>
        <text>iteration two</text>
        <position y="4635.0" x="-5198.0"/>
        <color name="Canary"/>
    </card>
       .
       .
       .
<ns2:cardMeeting>

Version 3 CardMeeting XML (changes underlined):

<ns2:cardMeeting title="CardMeeting Planning" version="3"
  xsi:schemaLocation="http://cardmeeting.com/schema/CardMeeting.xsd
                      http://cardmeeting.com/schema/CardMeeting.xsd"
  xmlns:ns2="http://cardmeeting.com/schema/CardMeeting.xsd"
  xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
    <item xsi:type="ns2:cardType">
        <text>iteration one</text>
        <position y="5434.0" x="7660.0"/>
        <color name="White"/>
    </item>
    <item xsi:type="ns2:cardType">
        <text>iteration two</text>
        <position y="4635.0" x="-5198.0"/>
        <color name="Canary"/>
    </item>
       .
       .
       .
<ns2:cardMeeting>

The REST and SOAP service changes should follow the changes made to the CardMeeting XML Schema. Probably next week, I will release a revised version of the CardMeeting Data Exchange document to reflect the impacts these changes will have on the Web services.

I will post again when the new Billboard feature is available (sometime on 4/23 or 4/24.)

Cheers, and thanks for using CardMeeting!
Dave Woldrich