[clug] [OT] X-Space (old Apple(?) project)

[Alex Satrapa]

On 19/10/2007, at 16:50 , Andrew Boyd wrote:

> sounds a little like Kartoo, which was(is?) Java and was the coolest
> thing on the web in 2002.

Heh... thanks for the pointer.  It's kinda-but-not-really what I was  
after.  I'll probably use it instead of Google now though - just  
because it's different, and being a Mac user I find it easier to  
understand the world when it's presented as pretty graphics that I  
can click on ;)

> Context visualisation tools are a dime a dozen now, but at the time,
> it had a lot of Woo factor.

Yup, these days I'd describe them as "interactive tag clouds" rather  
than "context visualisation tools".  What I remember seeing was a  
tool for navigating a topic map, which would hide stuff that was too  
"low" in detail or too far away (ie: child nodes of peer nodes to the  
one you're focussed on).

Think along the lines of a tag cloud that changes the importance  
(size) of tags based on the topics addressed by the page you're  
looking at, and hides tags that are too many links away from the  
current page.  It was animated too, so when the context changes (you  
click on a new topic), the topics move around to balance the tree,  
and fade out/fade in - so you're never left in the situation of a  
topic just hyperspacing across your field of view and costing you  
time to locate it again (which is what Kartoo does).

Thanks for the lead.
Alex