Flexible JAMM (Java
Applets Made Multiuser) Home Page
Flexible JAMM (Java Applets Made Multiuser) is an application-sharing system
that allows multiple users to simultaneously work in a legacy, single-user
application. Flexible JAMM provides support of multiple styles of collaboration
by allowing co-workers to view and change different parts of the shared
data simultaneously. This screenshot shows a text editor shared via
Flexible JAMM.
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9/25/98 - Installation bug fixes posted. No changes to classes, just patches
to batch and tar files.
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7/29/98 - Instructions to Convert an Application
to Swing and Serialization.
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7/2/98 Bug fix posted -- Two bugs fixed in version 1.0.1:
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joining from a Windows 95 PC used to hang
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joining from a machine with low memory would cause the initiator to say
the joiner had "Left the group."
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6/4/98 Version 1.0.1 -- works with Swing
1.0.2. Also, the interface is enhanced - collaborators
are listed, and users may select various options for displaying telepointers
and telecarets (see Telepointer Options
for more information).
Overview
There are two general approaches to providing computer support for real-time
(synchronous) collaboration. One is the sharing of legacy single-user applications.
This is referred to as collaboration transparency, because the sharing
is provided by a mechanism that is unknown, or "transparent," to the application
and its developers. The second approach, collaboration awareness,
is to design an application specifically to support cooperative work. In
contrast to collaboration-aware applications, conventional collaboration-transparency
systems, like Microsoft NetMeeting, are lacking in terms of efficient use
of network resources and support for key groupware principles: concurrent
work, relaxed What You See Is What I See (WYSIWIS), and group awareness.
Flexible JAMM is an alternative implementation based on an object-oriented
replicated architecture where certain single-user interface objects are
dynamically replaced by multi-user extensions. The replacement is transparent
to the single-user application and its developer. Thus, Flexible JAMM provides
many features previously seen only in collaboration-aware applications.
For example, unlike other application-sharing systems, Flexible JAMM allows
multiple users to simultaneously enter text in a text area.
Figure 1. Two users simultaneously
entering text. User A is editing text in the replica on the left and User
B is editing the replica on the right. See Multiuser
Interface Components: Concurrent Editing for more details.
This version of JAMM supports the shared use of 100% pure Swing-based user
interface components. A component shared via JAMM may be as
simple as a button or as complex as an applet. In the image
above, a Swing example component, called Stylepad, is being shared.
Flexible JAMM is the second generation of work described at this
URL: JAMM-AWT-based .
Using
Flexible JAMM
As a research project, Flexible JAMM is freely available for evaluation
and use.
Related
Projects at Virginia Tech
Sieve
- Collaborative Visualization
LiNC - Learning
in Networked Communities
James "Bo" Begole
Last modified: Wed Jul 29 17:07:05 EDT