My first project as an independent was to answer the question, why can’t I edit my website real-time with the same look and feel I use to navigate my website? And while I’m at it, why can’t I make the entire website a file based site where I can use any application to create content and have almost any type of file automatically translate to displayable content? Of course this was back in the 1980’s. But, using the fundamentals of AJAX and specially designed plugins, I was able to show several of the most common file types. Furthermore, I envisioned different sized screens and chose from 5 different sizes of images to reduce download speeds. And, finally, I created a shortcut scheme which allowed an infinite number of organizational schemes.
Each screen had a ‘lock’ icon in the file display window. ‘Unlocking’ this provided a menu driven scheme to perform all kinds of activities to manage or edit files. Of course, that was 30 plus years ago and today you see the likes of Google Drive doing many of the same things. Oh how I wish I had the resources to ‘expand’ that back then. It’s down the totem pole of priorities but when I have time, just for kicks, I’m going to try and revive that original web site to see just how far things have come. I know one thing for sure: no one has created the same concept. Imagine dragging and dropping using Windows explorer and that ‘automatically’ being reflected on your web site. The system used the operating system and LDAP to manage access. Oh there were plenty of plugins I created too. Like I had three slideshow plugins to demonstrate three uniquely different transition technologies. Or ‘playlists’ to allow for a sampling from multiple directories of photos or audio.