Relaxing the constraints on Demonstrations

[jagfnz]

I have been told that the demonstrations I developed for the Demonstration Projet are constrained in their size by the necessity to keep them small enough so that the the flash file created for web browsers works well. Unfortunately that constrained size doesn't work well for interactive viewing on a PC, where there is no reason that a large visual display with more vivid text and graphics, can be used. WHat I have been doing is developing larger applications , converting them to .nbp files to be used on MAthematica player, then providing a link to these enhanced files on my own site. This seems a little inefficient and not really in the interests of the Demonstration Project. I personally would like to be able to see links to various forms of the source code to download . I can do thois on my own, but there doesn't seem to be any easy way to add these sort of links to an existing demonstartion.

One way around this would be to develop the Demonstration Project interface to permit comments, blog style, then users or the developer could make suggestions, add notes and links to new derivative works, as they emerge. Personally I'd also like to see a record being kept of the number of views - or other statistics as Youtube provides.

ANy chance of these enhancements ever happening?

cheers
John

[telefunkenvf14]

John:

1. Can you provide a specific example?
2. As far as specific limitations/shortcomings I'd like to see improved upon...

*The ability to link to data on the web. As an example, right now much of the data provided directly via Wolfram, such as Unemployment rate by country, isn't broad or deep enough. It would be nice if we could have a standardized way to get approved 'safe' links to outside data.

**A 'rating feature'. Ideally this would be dynamically normalized some way (so if I always rate 4 of 5 stars, say, WRI would automatically normalize my ratings to average 3 stars--the key feature should be to help users find the above average demonstrations). **This also REALLY needs to be implemented in the Wolfram Library!!**

***Showing the 'day of submission/update' would also be a nice feature--especially if WRI would keep track of the demonstrations I've downloaded in the past and remind me to download updates to the demonstrations (perhaps only the ones I rate above average?).

****Tracking and displaying the 'total number of downloads' would also be a useful feature (ditto for the WRI Library). This would help prospective authors see roughly what demand is for specific topics. (A place for 'demonstrations requests' would also be nice, for the same reason---maybe present the aggregated information as a 'tag cloud'?)

One final idea that may be a little more involved... There are obviously some 'superstar' demonstration authors (Seth Chandler comes to mind). It would be cool if you could create a 'demonstrations blog' to give these authors some space to provide tips/tricks/thoughts on things related to MMA, producing demonstrations, teaching, and thoughts on technical computing workflows. Perhaps you could also just include such posts in the 'Wolfram Blog'. (I love reading the creative programming how-to's presented there---me want more!!!) Guessing you'd want to compensate such work---I'd leave that up to you. (Although, I'd have suggestions if you want to hear them...)

-RG