These are the things I am currently working on under Coko, PagedMedia etc… At the top is the stuff I’m most focused on whenever I last updated this page (April 15, 2018). Consequently what I am thinking about here often surfaces in my recent blog posts. You can see I am pretty busy!
Managed Deployments
About: Coko is about to land several platforms in the next 6 months. So, while the market is not yet supplying services for managed deployments and hosting I am setting up the backend for this. We will fill the gap until a commercial service appears.
Status : Rethinking this. Considering working with existing hosting providers. Initial discussions with my buddies from greenhost.nl. Updated May 6, 2018.
My Role and Team : Working through options.
INK
About: INK is a workhorse for processing publishing jobs of various kinds. Largely it is used for managing file conversion at scale however it can be used for almost any processing where external APIs, executable local code, or system calls are required. Built on Rails. Open Source (MIT).
Status : Briefed and contracted Richard Smith-Unna to do some stress tests. Updated April 29, 2018.
My Role and Team : I designed and instigated this project at Coko, and continue to manage it. The team also includes Charlie Ablett (contractor) and Richard Smith-Unna (contractor).
Links : Website (coming), Code, About Post
PagedMedia
About: The mission of PagedMedia is ‘To educate and inspire publishers to use HTML, CSS and JavaScript(JS) to produce print and paginated electronic content’. It consists of a website, a community, and some technical projects.
Status : JS Scripts coming along extremely well… announcement coming in the next weeks. If you are really really interested, check and watch the activity here. .. Updated April 28, 2018.
My Role and Team : I coFounded the project with Dave Cramer (Hachette Books). Julie and Fred are employed via my Shuttleworth Fellowship. I oversee the overall product technology, direction and strategy, and prompt various community members to take action on various things at various moments. PagedMedia is a community, but it has a committed staff including Fred Chasen (Dev), Julie Blanc (CSS Guru), and Raewyn Whyte (editor).
Links : Website
XSweet
About: XSweet is a suite of XSLT scripts to convert Microsoft Docx to HTML. Although this has been done before, no earlier approaches are comprehensive or sufficiently modular to my satisfaction. Additionally, most other attempts use another file format as an intermediary which is a mistake. See this for further explanation. Open Source (MIT).
Status : Alex is building the website, the 1.0 to be released in the first week of May. Updated April 26, 2018.
My Role and Team : I brought this idea to XML guru Wendell Piez and we worked out the details together. I play some light co-ordination of this project but most of the work is done by Wendell Piez (XSLT) and Alex Theg (testing and QA). They are both doing an amazing job.
Links : Website (coming), Code , Comms
Workflow Sprints
About: I am developing a product to enable publishers to design their new (optimised) workflow in 2 days. Normally this takes months and is a fraught process.
Status : This product is based on Book Sprints. I have effectively reduced the time for developing a new workflow, mapping it onto PubSweet, and creating wireframes to a 2 day event. I’m now working on productizing this. Updated April 15, 2018.
My Role and Team : Designer of the methodology and facilitator of the methodology. I’m currently looking at someone to do the wireframes remotely.
Links : Workflow Sprint working doc (Alpha)
Libero
About: Libero is a project by eLife and headed up their head of tech Paul Shannon. It aims to solve the hosting/delivery side of Journal systems. The project used to be called Continuum. Open Source.
Status : eLife are taking the lead in this project and I am actively trying to support their efforts. This week I’m off to Cambridge for a meeting about Libero. Alexis Theg and I are also putting together a demo of xpub-collabra integrated into WordPress, to see if this is of interest to the Libero community. Updated April 15, 2018.
My Role and Team : This is an eLife project, I am doing what I can to support it.
Links : About post
Wax
About: Wax is a full featured web based Word Processor. It can be used in any PubSweet project, or any other project. Open Source (MIT).
Status : Wax is integrated into Editoria and xpub-collabra (although the xpub version is a placeholder). It has sophisticated Track Changes, notes management and annotations/comments. It is built on Substance.io libs but we have been disappointed to see the Substance libs dramatically slow down in their development over the last 18 months. Consequently we are investigating a rebuild using ProseMirror. So, I’ve been researching the ProseMirror community and so far it is looking very good. If we move to ProseMirror we will first land Wax as is in Editoria, and then rebuild. Updated April 15, 2018.
My Role and Team : I oversee the overall product technology, direction and strategy. The team includes Christos Kokosias (Coko) and Yannis Barlas (Coko).
Links : Code, Demo (Oct 2017)
PubSweet
Ab
out: PubSweet is the first product Coko developed. It is an open source headless CMS that ‘thinks like a publishing system’. PubSweet is largely a Nodejs and React app.
Status : We are in the 2.x releases having integrated GraphQL and Postgres as major additions in the latest releases. The community is very healthy with eLife and Hindawi participating and some very exciting new community members to be announced very soon. See Jures very good presentation about commit stats. Updated April 15, 2018.
My Role and Team : PubSweet was originally conceived by me and I manage Jure Triglav. I also organise and facilitate the quarterly PubSweet community meetings, and share chairing of the PubSweet weekly community calls with Jure. Around 25 talented individuals from eLife and Hindawi contribute to PubSweet.
Links : Docs (soon to be moved), Code, Wiki, Comms
Editoria
About: Editoria is a full featured book publishing tool built on top of PubSweet. Designed with and for the University of California Press and the Californian Digital Library. Open Source (MIT).
Status : Editoria is approaching full production tests with UCP. Main work that needs to be done is the implementation of the access control, Editoria fixes (see Wax below), and work on stylesheet book exports. We have just employed Alison McGonagle-O’Connell (ex Aries) as the Editoria Community Manager – it’s going to be a big year for Editoria. Updated April 15, 2018.
My Role and Team : I oversee the overall product technology, direction and strategy. I also facilitated the UCP staff to design this product. The team also includes Yannis Barlas (Cok0), Alex Georgantas (Coko), Julien Taquet (Coko), Alison McGonagle-O’Connell (Coko), Kate Warne (UCP), Cindy Fulton (UCP), and Erich van Rijn (UCP).
Links : Website, Code, Roadmap , Comms, Slides
xpub-collabra
About: xpub-collabra is a Journal platform designed for and with the staff at Collabra Psychology Journal (University of California Press). Built on top of PubSweet. Open Source (MIT).
Status : xpub-collabra is approaching production tests with UCP. At this moment we are implementing the roles using our homegrown Authsome libs (attribute based access control). Updated April 15, 2018.
My Role and Team : I oversee the overall product technology, direction and strategy. I also facilitated the Collabra staff to design this product. The team also includes Yannis Barlas (Coko), Giannis Kopanas (Coko), Julien Taquet (Coko), Dan Morgan (Collabra).
Wormbase Micropubs
About: Wormbase Micropubs is a platform for the Wormbase project to replace their current home made workflow system. The platform will be useful for almost any other kind of micropub content. Built on top of PubSweet. Open Source (MIT).
Status : We are in the very early days. Design of the system is almost to the point we can start work building the system. Updated April 15, 2018.
My Role and Team : I oversee the overall product technology, direction and strategy. I also facilitated the Wormbase staff to design this product. The team also includes Yannis Barlas (Coko), Julien Taquet (Coko), Karen Yook (Wormbase), Daniela Raciti (Wormbase), and Todd Harris (Wormbase) .
Links : Wormbase
