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Network Interfacing

Enhancement (functions/features/futures)

Project Brief

Research, design, and develop a new feature for our network that can be implemented by others. Consider what features are part of networks you frequently use. What do they add to your experience? How might our network benefit from them?

Deliverables:

• A javascript file containing your feature’s function(s) titled: YOURFUNCTION.js
• A single-page site introducing and providing documentation on how others might use your function

Documentation:

Your documentation should exist at its own dat url. It should answer the following questions:

• why does your function exist?
• what does your function do?
• how do you install your feature?
• what are the components of the function?
• can you customize the feature? if so, what are the customizable variables?
• are there any external resources that you need to use your function?

Your documentation should be simple and easy to understand. Try and use technical language when necessary, and feel free to link to external resources.

Be conscious and try to take into account that depending on the user, there may be different levels of implementation and customizability wanted. Once you’ve finished a draft, try and implement your function on the boilerplate following your own directions. Let a friend try.

Documentation References

• Flickity
• Bootstrap
• MDN web docs
• Beaker Browser DatArchive API
• Google Maps

Timeline

April 9

• Installation Review and Feeback session
• Feature Final Discussion

April 2

• Feature Presentations
• Installation Session

March 26

• Feature and Documentation Review/Finalization
• Preparing for crit

March 12: Week 5

Over break, begin finalizing your function and continue to develop your documentation/installation notes. When we return we will begin testing cross-user implementations.

March 5: Week 4

Continue developing your feature. Take some time this week to prepare a mock-up of documentation/installation instructions. Consider how you will frame this feature to fellow network-users:

• What benefit does your feature offer?
• How is it used?
• How is it installed?
• Is it customizable (if so, how do you show this?)?

Feb 26: Week 3

Continue clarifying and building out your core feature. Clarify its use-case, what variables user’s might be able to manipulate, and how it might influence our network as a whole.

Feb 19: Week 2

For February 26, select one of your feature proposals and begin developing it based on the conversations we had in class. If you are working with a partner, take this week to figure out a good work-flow and how best to divide tasks.

• As you begin, try and consider where and how this feature is best implemented (i.e. at the profile or post level, or purely at the interface level?).
• Consider also, how this feature might build off of existing features or how your feature might collaborate with features other students are working on.
• Finally consider how to abstract your function for the most flexibility. What might fellow network participants want to do with this feature? What variables does your function need to work? What conditionals are set up to protect users from breaking their site (i.e. where does the error message go?)?

Feb 12: Week 1

For February 19, research and prepare three distinct feature proposals. These should each be formatted in a presentable manner and outline:

• the suggested feature
• the purpose of the respective feature
• a visual example of implementation (i.e. what do tags look like to add? to use? what can they be used for?)
• considerations regarding implementation (i.e. how might this feature effect the overall network behaviour?)
• considerations regarding development (i.e. will this be implemented into the profile.json, the post-xxx.json, or somewhere else?) and use of the DatArchive API (what methods do you imagine you might use?)