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You are here: Home Community Minutes Conference Calls 2010 2010-11-09 Tuesday Meeting

2010-11-09 Tuesday Meeting

Attending: Brian, Andrew, Colin, Scott, Chris, Will, Jean-Marie, Josh, Melissa, Brian Jones, Donald, Ola (Jason joined late)

Agenda

Remember: Agenda must be complete (with estimated times) on the day before the meeting. Any additions after that must go at the bottom (AOCB)

  1. Accepting minutes from last meeting

  2. Matters Arising (<10 mins)

    • Add mention of performance issue to troubleshooting
    • Organize the troubleshooting page (PG 8.2 etc.)
    • Everyone test new password change page in Web (new scenario incl. ldap!)
    • Chris: add #3199 to Known Limitations
    • Everyone: Its now OK to move any non-critical tickets to unscheduled as long is they are also added to "Known Limitations"
    • Everyone: test insight new panel layout
    • Andrew: Move troubleshooting page and create new Known Issues/Limitations page - done
    • Brian: New screenshots for client documation/list movies that need doing!
    • New scenario: export and re-import
      • Brian: Update BF, do import/export testing
    • Josh: Contact Shawn G. (email re: protocols/plates)
    • Chris: Make a comment about ipv6 on the FAQ
    • Josh: writes to angie to arrange travel
    • Josh: Update "Known Issues" with using our ice bundle for Mac CPP
  3. Release Status (10 mins)

  4. Ola's Web discussion (30 mins)

  5. Will's EM Web discussion (15 mins)

  6. Any other business (<5 mins)

In Attendance:

  • Brian, Andrew, Colin, Scott, Chris, Will, Jean-Marie, Josh, Melissa, Brian Jones, Donald, Ola, (Jason joined late)

Notes

  • Last week notes

    • Accepted
  • Matters from last week

    • Known issues
      • performance (after Chris sees result of last nightshade page)
    • no one tested password; chris will do so after meeting
    • OME-TIFF issues found and fixed (including schema)
    • Document changes ongoing
    • Export/Reimport testing had a few hickups with ome.tiffs (fixed now)
    • Josh contacted Shawn; no response yet
    • Chris: no FAQ entry to ipv6 yet. on troubleshooting?
      • Chris will put it on troubleshooting
      • since troubleshooting primarily an installation / getting-started
  • Release

    • 1 month until ASCB
    • Josh: one issue with bin/omero admin diagnostics
      • points to many small changes that are untested
      • Jean-Marie: if we can test as much as possible before Thursday
      • Chris: @branch tomorrow, get the version number correct
  • Web Discussion

    • Portal
      • Allow administrator to build on widgets/gadgets
      • Implement our widgets
      • Scott: extend OMERO.scripts to gagdets
        • Ola: could be, depends; haven't really considered that
        • possible to have server render gadgets for you
        • or handle that in another layer
      • Could easily do, but is it what they need?
      • Will: also allow users to setup portlets?
        • Ola: for everyone. based on policies
      • Carlos: two different concepts that are mixed
        • iGoogle: page that allows you to customize their looks; just another web view
        • provide plugins that users in institution can use in their own development
          • e.g.: "agent" for automatic tracking of features
      • Ola: have to make sure that we are a platform for publication
      • What are the current requirements for portals?
        • Missing: GUI/WYSIWYG, mashups, ~calendar & ~sharing (for users)
        • Missing: change css, wiki analytics (for admin)
      • Requires a lot of investigation to not get us into a dead-end
  • EM Discussion

    • This is not stuff from Will's core project, overall impressions of gateway
      • nightshade.o.org.uk/webmobile for example
      • also mage.../webemdb/
      • also experimented with EMAN2 extensions to image viewing
      • webfigure: similar to the figure script dialog on the web
        • copy url to send figures to others
      • split-dataset: request from Martin in Paris
        • allows quick comparison of channels/rendering defs
      • webroi
        • cF. MPorter's matlab code. Very UI oriented (as opposed to scripting).
        • might be possible to redo much of this in a more web-centric way
        • been experimenting with roi-placement, intensity measurement, volume rendering
      • Summary
        • Django/jQuery are great!
        • omeroweb/gateway easyt to use
        • Should omeroweb be the ui for scripting services?
      • Recommendations
        • unify the API (all python clients through blitz gateway?)
        • move script utils into blitz gateway
        • roi & scripting services in blitz gateway
        • more web client resources needed!
      • Q: (Ola) slide 5 - when did you do this? It should be released!
        • Will: done while in Australia
        • Jean-Marie: needs to be documented/communicated somewhere.
    • Comments:
      • Chris: Classical problem we've had: 'What is the web suppose to do?'
        • User-focused/template driven "display" v. adding more functionality as in insight
        • Is there / will there be anything in web that's not in insight?
        • What happens when/if we make the decision to do something in web that insight doesn't do?
        • At the moment, web is a viewing-centric place. But these proposals could shift to web as primary tool.
          • Open questions: import, etc.
      • Jean-Marie: webmobile is a good example of web functionality
        • are we using the potential of web? anything web-specific?
          • e.g. something that opens us to the wild.
      • Ola: coming to point where two applications are competing. We shouldn't compete.
      • Chris: what's the strategy for integration?
      • Jean-Marie: primary users of the web are ascb/jcb/emdb. Data in the wild.
        • Chris: but there are people that want to see all of insight in web.
        • But we have to make the decision to do one thing or the other
        • Jean-Marie: embed java in browser?
      • Carlos: personal view (biased toward publishing environment)
        • web can't replace insight without applets
        • point-n-click manipulation of the image will never be as snappy
        • no one wanting to interact with the image will be bugged with web-only
        • web-only approach is great if you want to be accessible to everyone and their cats
      • Chris: portal-style approach has issue of having the components talking to one another
        • Ola: if we spend enough time, framework can provide you handlers
        • Jean-Marie: we need to have a clear vision before we embark on new technology.
      • Josh: My 2-cents is that the web is giving good functionality now.
        • We should also encourage small extensions like Will's tools as well.
        • Jason joined
        • Jean-Marie: Don't want to give mixed messages to community
      • BrianJ: my view of .web client
        • if you look at deploying OMERO across an entire institute
        • all of the people who aren't doing research (maybe at least half)
        • need or want to have access to image data - .web is used for this function
      • Jason: is the question how much analysis functionality?
        • question is the philosophy, who is the client for. (publishing, etc.)
        • Chris: trying to see what we have and come up with a philosophy to explain "why isn't X in client Y?"
      • Will: my philosophy is they should have same functionality
        • only reason not is because it's technically too hard in that tech
        • Jean-Marie: fine, but we do not provide the URL clicking in insight
          • So, we may focus on merging some stuff, but then we don't take advantage of tech Y.
        • Chris: insight has been around longer. Moving forward, if we don't have the philosophy, hard to make these decisions.
        • Will: with my philosophy, it's easy to decide which (all) but not to prioritize them
        • Jean-Marie: Brian's comments about big institutions may help to prioritize
        • Could this make a change in getting OMERO into an environment?
          • BrianJ: Not a key factor in their decision
          • But moving to OMERO is a major paradigm shift which goes up to senior management
          • Want to make technology / tool available to the entire institution
          • But don't want to deploy Java/Insight to every desktop
          • i.e. frosting / an important element in the discussion
      • Jason:
        • saying broadly similar things in different ways (Chris: ?)
        • biggest problem technically is that there are things completely not exposed in strict subset of clients
          • e.g.: share, rois
        • Ola: this is because we don't have the strategy
        • Chris: Will is right, they are too polarize; there isn't enough overlap
          • Even if we restrict Web, we'd still have to port functionality
        • Jason:
          • will every piece of data be visible in both? (less about the users, then our offering)
            • Chris: for the moment, I'd say yes.
            • Ola: everything in the model should be visible, maybe not editable
          • then ask: how will clients be used by institutions?
      • Jean-Marie:
        • need to learn from our usability testing, and try to see data in a similar way
      • Josh: it might make sense to use the gateways to gather up functionality between clients
        • Gateways could be used to 'hide' the difference betweeen implementation and model
        • Jean-Marie: Good name for this is the 'communication layer'
        • e.g. there's no API that does "cut"
        • Jean-Marie: time contraints will make this sort of unification difficult
          • Need to make a lot of these agreements before implementation to get this working 'in the future'
          • Josh: Long term goal to ease getting new developers on-board, etc.
        • Carlos: Some framework in place for web 'api scripting service', maybe a good place to start
          • discussion needs to happen in person
        • Jean-Marie: may then also look at the interfaces
      • Will:
        • commit?
        • Jean-Marie: after branch.
        • Chris: there's a lot of low-level infrastructure missing, and documentation about how things should be structured.
          • "In url.py don't do these X things, because you will cause problems"
          • similar to making an Insight agent.
          • We have to stop working so wild-and-free to have this stuff extensible.
      • Jason:
        • should we talk to someone like Mark at Imperial who's developing in this environment?
        • probably a lot of overlap. and changes will inevitably cause him some pain.
        • Will: he would benefit a lot from some of this development.
        • Chris: where are the boundaries?
          • importer: someone finds a methods and starts using it. we change it, and boom.
          • the same thing will happen in the web: change to some templates makes others' code break
          • for mark: do you want to be hacking on the OMERO code or on a layer up? (not necessarily extant)
        • Ola: we should have some kind of framework, even if really simple
          • Chris: starts at the low-level
      • Jean-Marie: Outcome?
        • More discussion? More need for low-level web work?
        • Chris: if we made the decision to unify the data display, that's a lot of work.
        • Also need anonymous access: insight and web
        • Puts off our philosophical discussion until everything displayed and framework in place
        • Otherwise, can't discuss what other components to put in
        • Already pushing us towards "publishing" realm.
        • Then we can discuss portlets / user-controlling display
      • Jason
        • impression of 4.2.1: awful lot of good functionality
        • good time to say "let's go back underneath"
        • big problems that were hurting us (permissions, delete) are fixed
        • can now discuss flim analysis, etc.
        • good foundation that we can have out there for a while
        • and then see what we need to re-architect
        • "anonymous access" + big images is a good start.
        • Jean-Marie: new permissions requirement
      • Chris
        • push it in the direction of publishing: anyonmous access
        • then see where we are.
        • we've enabled collaboration, now we need to make it useful & easier
  • Other Business

    • None

# Actions # * Add "display all data in web" requirement * Add "anonymous access" requirement (~6 mon. work) * Add "web framework" requirement * Add flexible group/projections requirement

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