Another Word For It Patrick Durusau on Topic Maps and Semantic Diversity

February 3, 2014

Topincs – New Release

Filed under: Topic Map Software,Topic Maps,Topincs — Patrick Durusau @ 1:49 pm

Topincs 7.1.0

Now I see why Robert Cerny has been making all those screencast videos!

If you haven’t visited the Topincs homepage in a while, you really should take a look!

Sheer marketing genius when compared to most (all?) topic map marketing efforts!

I particularly liked the:

Slim down!!!

No more version control

No more build tool

No more IDE

Just a web browser and Topincs

(See the Topincs homepage for the best viewing results.)

The most important new feature is the study Topincs online option.

You submit your email address and in a few moments, a login ID with password appears in your inbox.

When you login, a Topincs instance has been created for you!

How slick is that?

No download, no install, no standing on one foot while whistling out of the opposite ear, etc.

Is there a saying: “Nothing but web?” 😉

Enjoy!

I am sure any and all feedback will be greatly appreciated!

January 21, 2014

Topincs Videos

Filed under: Topic Map Software,Topic Maps,Topincs — Patrick Durusau @ 2:48 pm

Robert Cerny is creating a series of videos on using Topincs.

For best results you will need a copy of Topincs: download.

Videos include:

If you are not familiar with the interface, it may take a little while to become comfortable with it, but the videos should help in that regard.

In particular I like length of the videos. Show one thing and one thing only.

That allows a new user to gain confidence with that one thing and then to move onto another.

The videos would be even more useful if there was a set order with test data for the first ones. So that people would not have to guess at random which one they should see first.

Update: How to setup the PHP programming interface in Topincs Added 22 Jan. 2014

November 21, 2012

Topincs 6.4.0

Filed under: Topic Map Software,Topincs — Patrick Durusau @ 7:47 am

Topincs 6.4.0 by Robert Cerny.

Robert details the new features and enhancements to Topincs.

April 9, 2012

Topincs 6.1.0 – (Works for > 97% of all U.S. Businesses)

Filed under: Topic Map Software,Topincs — Patrick Durusau @ 4:33 pm

Topincs 6.1.0

From the release notes:

This release has shown good performance under commercial conditions with:

  • 30 concurrent users
  • 60.000 topics
  • 200.000 associations
  • 200.000 occurrences
  • 7.000 files
  • + 3 smaller stores

If that sounds like a small number of concurrent users, consider the following statistics from 2008 on businesses in the United States:

Total businesses 27,757,676
Nonemployers (no payroll) 21,708,021
Firms with 1 to 4 employees 3,617,764
Firms with 5 to 9 employees 1,044,065
Firms with 10 to 20 employees 633,141

The next break is 20 to 99 employees.

With 30 concurrent users, Topincs supports more users than more than 97% of all U.S. businesses have employees.

Different way to think about marketing a product.

For < 20 employees, there are 26,646,290 potential purchasers. For > 20 employees there are 655,587 potential purchasers.

Which target sounds larger to you?

Anyone care to supply the numbers for other geographic areas?

December 15, 2011

Topincs 5.7.0

Filed under: Topic Map Software,Topic Maps,Topincs — Patrick Durusau @ 7:49 pm

Topincs 5.7.0

From the webpage:

Description

This version offers a bundle of new features to make it easy for the developer to create tailored views for users with minimal coding effort:

  • Up to this Topincs version all statements made in a form were validated independent from each other. With compound constraints this has an end. By using tiny JavaScript snippets arbitrary validation rules can be formulated.
  • Customizable context menus on topic pages offer tailored actions that mean more to the user than the generic edit button. The context menu is by default to the left of the page on the opposite side of all generic functions. Forms can be entered with bound values inferred from the context (time, subject, …). This new feature bridges the gap from the generic web database to web application.
  • It is now possible to freeze topics in the user interface and the API.

Apart from these core features a number of smaller improvements and changes were made, most notably the support for SSL was verified.

Download here.

You would think software authors would not depend upon ragged bloggers to supply the download links for their software. 😉

That it would be the first thing out of their mouths: Download Topincs HERE! or something like that.

Maybe it is just me. With every release I have to think about how to get back to the downloads page.

Do take a look!

November 20, 2011

Triggers are coming! Triggers are coming!

Filed under: Topic Map Software,Topincs — Patrick Durusau @ 4:18 pm

Triggers are coming! Triggers are coming!

Triggers are going to appear in Topincs 5.6.0 (to be released).

From the webpage:

Issue description
It should be possible to define triggers (or event handlers?). Code should be held in a directory triggers next to the directories domain and services.

Comment
Triggers are created on the command line with the new create-trigger command. This creates a topic of type Topincs trigger with id ID writes a file into STORE_DIR/php/triggers/ID.php. The user has to 1) specify when the trigger is run and 2) code what the trigger should do.

This looks very useful, whether you have streaming input or not.

Topincs homepage

October 25, 2011

Topincs 5.5.1

Filed under: Topic Map Software,Topincs — Patrick Durusau @ 7:35 pm

Topincs 5.5.1

From the website:

This version adds the store command ‘import-system-map’ and the general command ‘import-all-system-map’.

October 24, 2011

Topincs 5.5.0 Released!

Filed under: Topic Map Software,Topincs — Patrick Durusau @ 6:43 pm

Topincs 5.5.0 Released!

Robert Cerny announced today that Topincs 5.5.0 is available for downloading.

Release notes:
http://www.topincs.com/issues/Topincs_5.5.0

Use this procedure to update:
http://www.topincs.com/adminreference/update-secure

From the release notes:

Description

This release allows the creation of better understandable and easier editable web databases. By introducing perspective and language in label rules it is possible to create contextual labels. The complexity of data entry forms can be reduced by initially hiding less important form fields.

Furthermore the abilities to tailor content and restrict access were improved. The default behavior of displaying all associations between topics as links between the topic pages can now be deactivated by editing the topic type or the respective topic role constraints. The Topincs cache varies the representation of pages depending on user group.

I like the idea of “contextual labels.” Will have to give this release a spin to see how that works! More later.

Thanks Robert!

July 9, 2011

Topincs: A software for rapid development of web databases

Filed under: Topic Map Software,Topincs — Patrick Durusau @ 7:03 pm

Topincs: A software for rapid development of web databases, Robert Cerny’s paper for KMIS 2011.

Describes Topincs, a system that conceals many of the complexities of topic maps from users, while delivering on the value proposition of topic maps.

Think of Topincs as avoiding the topic map equivalent of: “How many people would use word processors if they had to learn LaTeX first?”

April 13, 2011

Topincs 5.4.3

Filed under: Topic Map Software,Topincs — Patrick Durusau @ 1:22 pm

Topincs 5.4.3

Robert Cerny has released Topincs 5.4.3.

From the release:

This version simplifies the Topincs help system. The self-explanatory nature of using Topincs leaves the help usually just as a list of available keyboard shortcuts. The help can be accessed with Alt-Shift-H or Alt-Shift-Control.

In addition some bugs were fixed and the access to resources (like images) for styling a Topincs store was made possible.

April 4, 2011

Topincs 5.4.1 – Enhancements/Bug Fix

Filed under: Topic Map Software,Topincs — Patrick Durusau @ 6:32 pm

Topincs 5.4.1 – Enhancements/Bug Fix

Enhancements/bug fix for Topincs 5.4.0.

Rare to see both enhancements and bug fixes quickly.

Kudos to Robert Cerny!

March 9, 2011

Topincs Style/Store

Filed under: Topincs — Patrick Durusau @ 4:23 pm

Topincs Styles/Store

Something to look forward to in Topincs 5.4.0:

It should be possible to customize the style of a Topincs installation and a Topincs Store. By using configuration parameters custom.css and custom.header files the files store/style/custom.css and store/style/header.html should be used.

Looking forward to it!

February 16, 2011

Programming in Topincs – Post

Filed under: Topic Map Systems,Topincs — Patrick Durusau @ 1:05 pm

Programming in Topincs

The main goal of programming in Topincs is to provide services that aggregate, transform, and manipulate the data in a Topincs store.

Robert Cerny walks through an invoicing system for a software company using the Topincs store.

Very good introduction to Topincs!

Thanks Robert!

Powered by WordPress