Web Projects for the Enthusiastic

This is a list of interesting ideas that we'd love to see developed. To keep in contact with other folks working on the web, try the www-talk mailing list.

There are also special lists of little things to do for each existing project such as the Line Mode Browser, the NeXT browser, the W3C Reference Library, and the server.

Client side

News post

Allow posing to newsgroups, viewing by subject, integration with .newsrc files, etc.

Better news reading

Allow viewing by subject, integration of .newsrc files, etc

Mail post

Allow mailing too.

Mail viewing

Reading mailboxes with multiple views and efficient indexing.

Virtual Reality meets WWW

Given a graphics composition language to allow 3 dimensional (maybe also with time) constructions of other network objects, the web can form a basis for networked virtual reality.

Linking into frozen documents

This will allow annotation of news articles, mail messages, and images.

Search engines

Now the web of data and indexes exists, some really smart intelligent algorithms ("knowbots?" TM Vint Cerf) could run on it. Recursive index and link tracing, Just think...There are more and more of these around nowadays.

Text from hypertext

We need a quick way to print a book from the web. (A simple method using TeX exists). Generating large documents from nested list tables of contents.

Slide show

Timed sequences of presentations. Scripting language for Multimedia stuff. References: Apple Quicktime, IBM/PC's AVI, HyTime. Make a new MIME content type for such a 4-D montage of other documents. Interest: [email protected] Aug 93. See Kevin Hughes's solution too.

Server side

More Gateways

The list of information we have thought of or been pointed to which could be put into the web.

WAIS integration

WAIS protocol extensions to allow hypertext; HTML data type, docids to be conforming UDIs. WAIS has been integrated into the client now, using freeWAIS code. Maybe that code could all be simplified/speeded up? Z39.50 latest version added?

Relational Database Gateway

Flexible tools for generating hypertext views of relational databases.

FTP server distribution

Persuade the newer FTP server implementations to include a HTTP server in the distributed code, to allow more efficient access

Other software

Transport level Gateways

Novell IPX, JANET, DECnet for example.

Link semantics

Links with semantics have been in the spec for ages -- we need clients which can edit the semantics, and then machines to analyze a semantic web.

Mail manager

A hypertext view of a mail archive with lists of messages by author, topic, with links between messages. A friendly face on a mail archive would be a great project management tool.

Graphic overview

Display the web from any document in a graphical form. Display the user''s view of the web as a tree, given the history of navigation.

Phone-line protocol

There is a need for a point-point low bandwidth protocol designed for beating the heck out of a phone line. The protocol will keep the phone line occupied in a very intelligent way with look-ahead fetches of related documents and lists or parts of them so that a home user with a big disk can explore with optimized ease when he is paying by the minute.

MOO Integration

WWW meets MOO, IRC, etc. MOO users explore the web, WWW users find MOO rooms. See MOOs on the web . See also VR above.

Documentation

Tutorials

Hypertext leading a new or prospective user through W3. Some good ones are now available.

Canned demos

A hypertext path through some good representative places to visit. Maybe a script to make a timed presentation (with sound?). We have quite a lot of these in hypertext now.

Videos

Would save us giving so many talks!

Policy documents

Statements on NIR: collect from institutes, provide background for organizations making NIR policy decisions.