Wookie Virtual Machine (with new widgets and Drupal demo)

Apache Wookie is a Java server application that allows you to upload and deploy widgets for your applications. These widgets are implemented in conformance with the W3C Widget specification. Using Wookie these widgets can be embedded in any online application. Wookie includes plugins for a number of common tools such as Drupal, Wordpress and Moodle.

Widgets can be single-user (e.g. RSS reader) or multi-user (e.g. shared task list).

Wookie has no significant user interface for users and it can be difficult to understand how it is used. This project seeks to provide a powerful demonstrator that will allow users to see Wookie in action with the minimum of fuss.

We require the building of a small number of useful widgets (or extension of existing widgets in our repository) that can sensibly be used together to solve a simple user problem. In order to demonstrate these widgets require a virtual machine image that includes Wookie, the custom widgets and a third party tool, such as Drupal, which demonstrates the widgets in an embedded context.

The precise use case can be designed by the implementer, as can the tool in which the widgets will be embedded. However, please note that in order to minimise the new work that needs to be done we recommend using a platform for which we already have a connector (see http://wookie.apache.org/docs/embedding.html).

As an example of the kind of use case that can be implemented we suggest:

"Jane manages her employers social media accounts. She needs a tool that will display a list of tweets mentioning her company. Allow her to reply to and create new tweets. Allow her team to submit suggested tweets for her to approve and send. Allow her to schedule tweets to be sent at a given time."

This use case would likely include 3 separate widgets. One to search for tweets. One to allow the sending of tweets. One to allow her team to suggest new tweets. It would be ideal if these widgets interacted e.g. clicking on "approve" in the team widget would move the suggested text to the send widget, however, this is not necessary in the first iteration of this demo.

The virtual machine would likely be a Linux based image with Wookie and perhaps Drupal installed. When logging in as Jane all three widgets will be displayed. When logging in as a team member only the team widget is displayed.

Note that we have widgets to provide functionality similar to each of these. There is work in making them a valuable demo, but there is starter code available now. Consequently, this is a good use case to tackle. However, anything that shows off the best of Wookie would be a good demo.

Outputs:

• 3-4 widgets that integrate well
• configuration files for the chosen demo platform
• appropriate scripts for building the demo VM on a base Linux install
• deployed VM on one or more public cloud service
• webpage for the Wookie site describing the demo, with screenshots

Note that most of the tools we currently have connectors for are GPL licensed. This creates licensing issues about where some of this code can be held. The Wookie community will help understand this and make appropriate arrangements to ensure the code is made available in a sensible way.