Bookmarks

Apps with some similarities to OpenRecord

Google Base
Google Base has a data model that's vaguely similar to the OpenRecord data model. For example, in Google Base any item can have any number of ad-hoc attributes, any attribute can be multi-valued, any date value can have an end-date as well as a start-date, and numbers can have units (like "meters" or "meters/second"). However, I think the similarities end there. Google Base seems to be oriented toward "monolithic" items, rather than big structures of small items -- for example Google Base does not seem to be designed to support any type of references between items, or multi-item transactions.
The Ning Content Store
The ning.com site uses a custom Content Store that has a data model which is similar in many ways to the OpenRecord data model. A Ning "Content Object" is like an OpenRecord "Item". The most significant similarity is that both Ning and OpenRecord lack any notion of pre-defined schema -- any items (content objects) can have any attributes. Ning and OpenRecord are also similar in that they both support bi-directional references. However, there are a number of differences. In Ning, each Object can be of only one type, and the type of an Object cannot change once the Object is created -- OpenRecord has no similar notion. In Ning, an attribute is identified by its name (a string) -- in OpenRecord attributes are identified by UUID, an attribute can have different names in different languages, and each attribute is itself an item, so it can have not only a 'name', but also a 'summary' description, and other descriptive attributes. Like OpenRecord, Ning allows any attribute to be multi-valued, but in Ning all the values of a multi-valued attribute must be of the same type. Ning has a notion of public vs. private content, whereas OpenRecord treats all content as public. OpenRecord includes some support for transactions, whereas Ning generally doesn't.
Dabble DB
The Dabble web site currently (Nov 2005) only has a few screenshots, and doesn't have much written documentation. So, it's hard to know quite what Dabble is, but judging by what is posted it certainly looks like Dabble and OpenRecord are both trying to solve the same problems. One tidbit that's particularly interesting is that Dabble supports "inverse fields" to "automatically track two-way relationships". For more insight into Dabble, check out their weblog Dabble weblog, or have a look at this review on Solution Watch.
Dan Bricklin's wikiCalc
"The wikiCalc program is a web authoring tool for pages that include data that is more than just unformatted prose. It combines some of the ease of authoring and multi-person editing of a wiki with the familiar visual formatting and data organizing metaphor of a spreadsheet."
Sproutliner
Sproutliner is a web-based app that's good at outlines and tables of items. It has a crisp UI. I think that it does not support concurrent editing of pages, and it looks to be page-centric (like Sparrow) rather than database-centric (like Dabble?).
Sparrow Web
Sparrow Web is a structured wiki tool that seems geared toward the same sort of uses as OpenRecord. Unlike most of the other projects on this list, Sparrow Web was written in the 1990s and has been in use for years and years. Sparrow Web has a forms-based UI where OpenRecord has an AJAX UI, and Sparrow Web has page-centric content, rather than database-centric content that appears on pages as the result of queries.
Semantic MediaWiki
"The overall objective of the project is to develop a single solution for semantic annotation that fits the needs of most Wikimedia projects and still meets the Wiki-specific requirements of usability and performance."
Wikidata
A MediaWiki project. "Wikidata is a proposed wiki-like database for various types of content."
Daisy CMS
An open source CMS that has at least a few similarities to OpenRecord. For example: multi-value fields, documents identified by unique IDs (and documents names need not be unique), and there's no intrinsic notion of file-system directories.
Intuit QuickBase
Intuit QuickBase is an expensive, proprietary service geared toward corporate workgroups. Seems to have lots of good features for charts, timelines, etc.
"Semantic Wiki" projects
Links to a half dozen "Semantic Wiki" projects like Platypus, Rhizome, and Gnowsis, as well as links to desktop-app projects like Chandler and Haystack.

JavaScript UI examples

Eyes
Crosshairs
Business Card Creator
Shows off a number of design choices that make for a more usable UI - read about why this is a good UI
Monket Calendar
Live Grid
A component that displays tables with tens of thousands of item. As you scroll the table, the widget automatically fetches data from the server as needed, a small chunk at a time.
Drag-and-drop
Menus and tree widgets
GTD TiddlyWiki
Webnote
A nice example of a simple, responsive UI. It has some features a real app would have -- undo/redo, transparency, saving state on the server, using unique URLs to address new content, etc. Check out the hints list to see more about how to use it: hints
BlahBlah Finance -- AJAX spreadsheet
ActiveWidgets Grid
Note all the little features they've done:
- real-time column header re-sizing (drag bars between headings)
- column sorting (click on column headers)
- the top column headers scroll in sync with the horizontal scroll bar, yet they stay visible even when you scroll down with the vertical scroll bar -- similarly, the row headers sync with the vertical scroll bar yet stay visible even if you scroll the horizontal scroll bar
TrimSpreadsheet Demo
Mac-style dock
A9: add more columns
Another drag and drop example.
map.search.ch
Map browsing.
Zuggest
Text searching via XMLHttpRequest.
more examples
Oddpost
Scalix's outlook clone
article and photo
Tibco's AJAX-stlye GUI builder
TrimPath's "Next Action" to-do list tool.

Articles and Resources

Client-server and server-server communication

Content Management Systems (CMS)

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