Day: February 19, 2006

Shimon Rura and I have developed a JavaScript (Ajax)-based slide show program.  You can test it out at http://philip.greenspun.com/photography/exhibits/slide-shows and the comments in the code explain how to adapt it for use on another site.  Unlike some other programs that we have seen, this one downloads all of the images in the background so that changing from slide to slide is instantaneous for the user, with no time spent looking at an “image loading” screen.  The thumbnail feature seems kind of nice too.  That is done with browser-resized images.  We’re looking for design experts who want to write skins for this system.  Basically we need some styles and buttons (the ones you see were done in GIMP in a few minutes by Shimon and don’t work very well with MSIE).  Credit will be given.  Comments would be appreciated on any aspect of the program and its interface.

A friend at Boston Children’s Hospital wants to establish an online community for 400-1000 people who are either working at the hospital or are parents of children with a specific disorder.  He basically wants a discussion forum, but with state-of-the-art features for moderation, spam-proofing, and karma-assignment.  His main concern is quickly identifying people who are negative contributors and getting rid of them or changing their behavior.  Is there a good free and open source software package that he can simply install and run?  drupal.org perhaps?