Notional documents provide a real bridge between discussion and work product.
Writing documents usually takes a lot of time. Here's the beginnings of a faster, rationalistic way to get them written.
Instead of working on documents one character at a time on your own, just message whole sentences to others. The software reads your ending punctuation to update, mark up, and structure the document. It taps into the logical structure common to all manuscripts.
It's like building a document a block at a time, rather than by grains of sand, by a process that thrives rather than stalls on differences of opinion.
Notional Documents is a propositional-logic approach to collaboration and document crafting. Discuss a topic by trading sentences to build documents made up of sentences.
- Draft and edit at close to messaging speed
- Engage in feedback and debate to draw out ideas and develop paragraphs by a rationalistic process
- Manage a library of separate projects
Before installing ensure you hae the following:
Navigate to the project root and run the following command:
$ npm installThis will install all the necessary dependencies.
Then to build the angular app run
$ gulp buildBefore you run, you'll need to set up your app's config to point to your Firebase database.
- Go to https://firebase.google.com/ and set up a new account.
- In the Firebase Console, select "+ Add Project" to start a new project. Name it whatever you like.
- Once initialized, select "</>" under "Get started by adding Firebase to your app" on the Overview screen. A modal window will pop up that will look similar to this:
<script src="https://www.gstatic.com/firebasejs/4.13.0/firebase.js"></script>
<script>
// Initialize Firebase
var config = {
apiKey: "*",
authDomain: "*",
databaseURL: "*",
projectId: "*",
storageBucket: "*",
messagingSenderId: "*"
};
firebase.initializeApp(config);
</script>
- Paste the information inside the modal's
var config = { ... };into the appropriate place within theindex.htmlfile in this project. - Next, go into Firebase settings and select "Service Accounts"
- With "Node.js" selected, paste the posted information into server/firebase-admin.js
- Then select "Generate new private key". Paste the key into config/serviceAccountKey.json
- Your project will now link to your firebase account.
- Finally, click "Authentication" on the left to configure auth.
After installing and linking to Firebase, type this into a terminal:
$ npm startWhen the application finishes initializing, open up a browser and navigate to http://localhost:3000
In discussion, we state information, as well as comment on and justify ourselves against, the sentences of others. We also ask questions. These interactions prompt others and make them aware of how we feel about common information, and why.
In notional documents, punctuation marks [ . ! ? : ] serve like logical operators, providing these cues. They tell the software how to update common information - the document.
Conventional paragraphs start with a topic sentence that states a main idea, followed by supporting sentences that expand upon or justify it. An acceptable paragraph is often a more complete and complex thought than a single sentence.
In notional documents, an author has a kind of sovereignty over their own paragraphs just as they do over their own thoughts. By design, users may mark up sentences in another author's paragraph with remarks or criticisms, but the author can replace these with justifications or elaborations, thereby building up the paragraph.
In discussion, we use questions to prompt others to share information that is not already common knowledge. In a document, a new section explores information not already stated to the reader. Notional Documents connects the function of a question to the usefulness of supposing an additional section of a document about a complex idea.
One further avenue for development involves constructing an algorithm to parse any question into the noun phrase that titles the new section.
- Non-blocking collaboration: share the document's outline and settle with an unlimited number of co-authors over entire paragraphs of ideas rather than individual words (in development)
- Document drafting without the need to view the document (nearly there)