Document Collaboration: Putting it all together

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Once we had the right process established, compiling phase reports was a breeze. Our first step would be to use a good old fashioned whiteboard during our meetings to divvy up tasks and illustrate our concepts. Amritha would then document the tasklist and upload it to Dropbox. From there, each member checked his/her assigned tasks and would create a separate word document in the phase folder. When two or more of us needed to work on a small task simultaneously, we used Google docs to create the document and would then upload it to the dropbox folder.

As each task was completed and uploaded, I proofread, formatted and complied all the mini tasks into a single consistent document. So when the deadline came around, all that was left was a few final bits of formatting, a couple of proof readings and the report was ready to be turned in.

Document Collaboration: Dropbox vs. Google Docs

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Dropbox is simply the greatest thing that's happened to team collaboration. Ever. Dropbox lets you keep a single folder synchronized with a web server, allows you to have 2 GB of content, has a web interface for accessing data from a browser and even a client that makes managing dropbox folders a breeze. But it doesn't stop there - Dropbox also lets you share folders with friends and set permissions, keeps the files synchronized across all devices and has a public folder that can be shared with people who dont use dropbox via a simple HTTP link.

However, there were a few situations where we needed 'live' document collaboration and thats when Google Docs came into the picture. With a Google account you simply create a new document and invite friends to collaborate on the document. The application supports live editing of the file by multiple users (I've seen upto 40 on one document) and uses micro-version control to ensure that users never overwrite each others content.

Moocher File Structure

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Most of the Moocher team is familiar with the Model View Controller framework from past work with Ruby on Rails. We have decided to modify this framework for Moocher. The main change we are making is the combination of the controller and the view. We will also have a model for each view/controller which will contain all functions needed to interact with our database or outside interfaces/API's. However, we will also have "models" for external interfaces, API's, or even large pieces of functionality such as mapping, pagination, emailing, etc. Apart from the Model View Controller framework we're also splitting up the CSS and Javascript per view/controller so that each page has a definite location for all of it's functions, styling, and scripts. We're hoping this move will minimize the amount of people editing a single file at a time. A visualization of the Moocher file structure can be seen below:



Video Tour

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We've developed a walkthrough demo video for Moocher highlighting some of the main features of the application. Please watch in full-screen mode for best results. We are currently working on getting a HD quality version of this video embedded on the website.

Hello World!

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Welcome to the Moocher project website! Here you will find development tips and tricks, Moocher updates, resources and much more so please visit often. Our RSS feed should be up and running shortly, along with a number of other features around the blog.
1:12 AM

About Us

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the.moocher.project blog was conceived as an alternate means of documenting Moocher's development cycle and was also intended to provide a community base for users to interact with developers and to comment on features and updates. we have expanded the scope of the project to also include articles that supplement technical documentation, user guides, system updates and problem status reports. we also have a casual blogging section (team chatter) where team members post about lighter topics.

Thanks for vising our blog,
Team 6

Lily Li: E-Mail

Amritha Prasad: Twitter

Varun Srinivasan : LinkedIn | Blog | Twitter

Alex Tambellini: E-Mail | Website

Rechen Wang

Resources

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During the course of our documentation and development, Team 6 had to use a variety of web sites and applications to design, develop, collaborate and deploy our project. We maintain a constantly updated Google Document with links to software resources, and this has been reformatted and organized for this page.


Collaboration Apps:

Design Apps:

Development Apps:


PHP Development:

Facebook Development:

Misc: