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| Acquisitions Editor | Lysa Lewallen |
| Copy Editors | Nicole Clausing and Margo Hill |
| Technical Reviewer | EarthWeb |
| Project Coordinator | Barbara Dahl |
| Cover Design | Megan Gandt |
| Book Design | Bruce Lundquist |
| Page Layout | Bruce Lundquist and M.D. Barrera |
Copyright © 1996 by EarthWeb, LLC. All rights reserved.
All other product names and services identified throughout this book are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies. They are used throughout this book in editorial fashion only and for the benefit of such companies. No such uses, or the use of any trade name, is intended to convey endorsement or other affiliation with the book.
No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form, or stored in a database or retrieval system, or transmitted or distributed in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of Macmillan Computer Publishing USA, except as permitted by the Copyright Act of 1976, and the End-User License Agreement at the back of this book, and except that program listings may be entered, stored, and executed in a computer system.
EXCEPT FOR THE LIMITED WARRANTY COVERING THE PHYSICAL DISK(S) PACKAGED WITH THIS BOOK AS PROVIDED IN THE END-USER LICENSE AGREEMENT AT THE BACK OF THIS BOOK, THE INFORMATION AND MATERIAL CONTAINED IN THIS BOOK ARE PROVIDED "AS IS," WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION ANY WARRANTY CONCERNING THE ACCURACY, ADEQUACY, OR COMPLETENESS OF SUCH INFORMATION OR MATERIAL OR THE RESULTS TO BE OBTAINED FROM USING SUCH INFORMATION OR MATERIAL. NEITHER MACMILLAN COMPUTER PUBLISHING USA NOR THE AUTHOR SHALL BE RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY CLAIMS ATTRIBUTABLE TO ERRORS, OMISSIONS, OR OTHER INACCURACIES IN THE INFORMATION OR MATERIAL CONTAINED IN THIS BOOK, AND IN NO EVENT SHALL MACMILLAN COMPUTER PUBLISHING USA OR THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR DIRECT, INDIRECT, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF THE USE OF SUCH INFORMATION OR MATERIAL.
ISBN: 1-56276-449-7
Rebecca would like to thank all the guys at EarthWeb, especially Nova, Alex Day Chaffee, Steve Renaker, and Dave Gochfeld, for all their many contributions. Special thanks are also due to Juliet Langley, Lysa Lewallen, Valerie Perry, Barbara Dahl, Nicole Clausing, and Margo Hill, as well as the production and design teams at Ziff-Davis Press; to Brian Gill for his professional advice; and to Amy Bezek for valuable eleventh-hour editorial help.
Gamelan started life as a directory of Java resources, and this is still its central function. At the time of this writing, it contains over 2500 resource entries, organized into over 65 categories. But how are these categories organized? In a word: hierarchically. On the front page are twelve major categories-from "Arts and Entertainment" to "Web Sites." Under each category is a cascade of subcategories. For example, under "Arts and Entertainment" you can find the subcategories "Games" and "Sports"; under "Games" you can find further subdivisions, like "Card Games" and "Arcade Games." If we've done our job right, if you've got a particular topic in mind, you can find it from the home page with a minimum number of clicks. Also, some categories contain links to other, related categories. For instance, the category Special Effects is linked to the category "Programming in Java: User Interface."
Once you've found a category that interests you, you can see its subcategories, its links to other related categories, and then a brief list of all the items in the category. The brief list shows the resource name, its type, the date it was entered, and an icon showing whether it is new or cool. To see more information, click on the arrow beside it, and you'll jump to a more detailed record display.
If you are familiar with Gamelan, and you are a fluent user of the Web, you might wonder, "Why do I need this book?" Beyond the obvious value of being the first on your block to own the Official Gamelan Java Directory book, there really are reasons this volume can be helpful to you.
The directory structure is under a continual state of reorganization. This is driven by the constant influx of new material from our users and contributors. Our policy for reorganization started with a simple rule of thumb: If a category has more than 50 items in it, then it needs to be reorganized. This involves sitting down, going through each item, and figuring out if it can be put into an existing subcategory. Or if enough existing resources share a common theme, then we can move them all into a new subcategory. Occasionally, in reorganizing a category, we will find that some existing subcategories are redundant; in that case, we will not hesitate to sacrifice that category and fold its resources into other, more appropriate locations. While reorganization is mentally arduous, we have developed software that makes it relatively easy to move items around and create new categories. This is one advantage Gamelan has to a physical directory, such as a library card catalog: It's a lot easier to change your mind in cyberspace.
Another advantage an online structure has is that it costs nothing to duplicate records. A particular resource can, and frequently does, live in more than one category. This helps assure that if there's something relevant to what you're looking for, you're more likely to find it.
An interesting feature of Gamelan (which other sites are now starting to duplicate) is the real-time SiteMap Java applet. This feature, which is accessible from every page, brings up a separate window containing a list of all the categories in hierarchical order. This lets you get a bird's-eye view of the information space-an interesting counterpoint to the worm's-eye perspective of traditional Web browsing. The power of hypertext lies in its ability to provide instant relationships between related pieces of information without needing to specify in advance the type of relationship. However, as anyone who has spent an afternoon surfing knows, it becomes quite easy to get lost in a maze of twisty little hyperlinks, all alike. SiteMap shows the user the dominant underlying structure of the site, providing a framework, without taking away her ability to make her own connections.
In addition to browsing the directory, you can find resources another way: searching. Gamelan's "Find A Resource" page allows you to enter arbitrary keywords and see all the resources that match those terms, either in their names or descriptions. All of the resource descriptions on this resulting page will contain pointers back to the categories they came from. This points out the main advantage Gamelan has in being organized by category. Even if none of the resources that the search function matched hits the mark, chances are one will come close to what you were looking for. You can then jump back into the category it came from to look for other similar resources. Browsing and searching are complementary, and the ability to do both is invaluable.
The process of submitting a resource can seem a little mysterious, but it's really quite simple. In order to submit a resource, you first go to our "Add A Resource" page. After entering all the information about the resource, including suggesting a number of categories for it to go in, you hit the "Submit" button. You then see a confirmation page showing what it will look like if it is approved and entered into our database. If it is acceptable, you confirm the submission, and the resource gets put on our incoming queue. (If you are impatient, you can look at the incoming queue; it's referenced off of the "What's new" page. But be warned: The content on this page has not been approved or reviewed by our staff.)
Once it's on the incoming queue, the resource gets reviewed within a few days by one of our staff of librarians. The librarian will confirm that the resource performs as advertised, might make some changes to the description or other fields of the submission, and decides which categories it belongs in. In deciding which category to put something in, our policy is to ask ourselves not which of the series of existing categories it would apply to, but whether someone looking in a particular category would want to find that particular resource. This sounds like another way of saying the same thing, but it's an important distinction. This way, for example, even if a particular Web site contains an applet using animation and sound, unless it actually pertains to creating animations, or unless it's a particularly good example of the form, it won't go in the category Multimedia: Animation. Instead, it would go in Web Sites: Home Pages (or another, more appropriate category).
You can also enter modifications to your resources. These too are reviewed by our staff before "going live." How do we guarantee that someone won't submit a change to someone else's entry, maliciously or by accident? We rely on the honor system. Nobody likes having to remember passwords, and since all submissions and modifications have to be reviewed by a human anyway, there's no chance of someone entering any blatant silliness. To avoid malicious modification, we also e-mail the original user (and the new user if the e-mail changes in the course of the modification). This system has worked well for us so far; in eight months, there have been about four changes submitted without the original author's knowledge, and all of them turned out to be honest mistakes.
So far, we've described how Gamelan is the equivalent of a library for Java information. But a library is a lot more fun if there are people in it (at least if you're allowed to talk to them). You can exchange ideas, point out interesting applets, and share techniques. Gamelan is nothing if not an outgrowth of the Java community. We do the work of organizing and filtering, but all the submissions come from you. And most of the new features we add come from outside suggestions. In short, Gamelan is its users.
By far the coolest community feature in Gamelan is Chat. Developed by Carl Muckenhoupt and the Chat Team, this applet is EarthWeb's most popular Java offering. It has been licensed by over 6000 Web sites around the world. It provides a clean, simple, easy-to-use chat room, wherein you can discuss the latest developments in Java-or whatever strikes your fancy. You can also surf to other channels in the EarthWeb Chat Network.
In Gamelan's Who's Who section, you can browse through a list of all the authors of the applets, sites and documents registered in the directory. Also in the section are lists of designers, developers, and managers. There are also lists of companies who are hiring, and people who are looking for work. And you can register yourself, specifying your interests and personal information, hopefully hooking up with others with similar interests. To join, just click the link that says "Add yourself to our list of Java People" on the Who's Who page.
Of course, Gamelan is more than just a passive receptacle for all the myriad indiscriminate submissions of the Java masses. Where would the fun be in that? While we are by no means a rating service, we do provide a strong editorial service. First, in order to make it into our directory, an applet must work. This obvious criterion is actually important in such a development-oriented environment. Then, if an incoming applet tickles the reviewer's fancy, he marks it as "cool." There are a number of different criteria we use when deciding if something is cool: strength of code, originality, utility, artistic merit, and cleverness. (We may actually rate these aspects separately in the near future.) Items that are cool are marked with our trademark fan icon in the category listings. Or, you can click on the big fan in the button bar to go to our What's Cool page. This page lists all the resources we've selected as cool, in order by date (most recent first).
If an applet is particularly striking, we select it for an even greater honor: It becomes our Featured Applet. Once upon a time, we would announce the featured applet without checking with the author first. Then one day in January, we received a plaintive e-mail-"Hello! I was honored that one of my applets was selected as the featured applet of your directory. However there have been so many hits that my service provider blocked my home page." We felt awful! Since then, we have checked with the featured applet authors ahead of time to make sure their servers could handle the load-as well as to give them the chance to decline (although so far, that hasn't happened). Additionally, Interactive Age Digital interviews the author of the featured applet and runs a story on the applet and the interview. We also provide a list of previously featured applets on the site.
As another means to express our opinions, we have installed a page called Gamelan Staff Picks. Every month, members of our reviewing staff pick their favorite examples from a number of different categories. You can access this page from our Special Features section.
We have included a "What's Cool" section in this book. Its entries are listed alphabetically.
Gamelan offers several ways to keep abreast of the latest developments in the Java world. On our home page, the first thing you see a list of announcements. We reserve this space to inform you about important developments that all Java developers and users should know about. For example, when Microsoft released a beta version of Internet Explorer which supported Java, we announced the FTP location. We also announce improvements to the site, such as new pages or features.
You can also post your own announcements to our site. If you submit a document to the category News: Announcements, it will appear in a special list inside the directory. This list is for press releases, product announcements, or special events which deserve timely notice. Likewise, the category News: Articles provides links to Java articles online.
We also have our own news content. Interactive Age Digital (IAD) generously provides us with copies of their articles on Java. This relationship was inaugurated during the first JavaOne conference in May, 1996. Two IAD reporters attended the conference and provided daily coverage of the announcements and events which transpired during the course of the show. We continue this tradition with frequent articles about current events in the Java world.
One of the newest features of Gamelan is Gamelan Direct, the marketplace for the Java community. Gamelan Direct is an online store where you can buy and sell Java-related software and other products. Just as Gamelan helped to pioneer the Java revolution, Gamelan Direct is helping to pioneer the birth of a commercial Java industry. If you would like to visit Gamelan Direct, simply click on the Gamelan Direct button on Gamelan. Once you are in Gamelan Direct, you can browse through the catalog and purchase products safely using our secure commerce system. You can even buy software online and download it directly for immediate gratification! If you have a Java-related product that you think could be of use or interest to others in the Java community, visit Gamelan Direct and fill out our vendor application form. We hope that this new offspring of Gamelan will grow to become an important commercial hub for the Java community.
