Re: NetBeans Contribution: Form-Enabled JCA

Hi Chris I am sorry to hear about your expericence with nbdev and no repsonses.  

So a couple of areas where we can use some help immediately are:
Creation of community news: This can be done for Sprout and NB.org. Maybe interviews with key community members in addition to module leads etc.,

Another option would be preparing documentations - tutorials - demos -howtos. You would work with the NB doc guys to see what needs to be accomplished.

Our product pages are outdated and needs work. This includes our product comparison page which needs to be completely revamped.

Maybe search the internet looking for developer portals and ensure NetBeans is listed.

We are also pushing engineering to come up with a "wish list" of extensions that can be worked on by community members. This is not ready though.

You probably have ideals of where you would like to contribute to the project and specific interest. Feel free to make a proposal of things
that you think can be done around the NB project whether this would be something you would like to initiate or not.

We really (nbmarketing & community) need to come up with more concrete ways people can contribute.

NB marketing people any other suggestions?

- Rob -
>Jack/Robert,
>
>It sounds as if I am in good company -- it is always refreshing to meet
>folks who know that "upstate NY" is nowhere near NYC.  :-)
>
>Seriously though, responses to your questions follow:
>
>> Chris, do you know if there are any compatibility problems
>> with this format - ie forms will only work with reader
>> versions later than xyz, don't work on platform abc ... ?
>> I did a quick hunt around online but couldn't find much.
>> Ghostscript on Linux did not work for me, but I installed
>> Adobe Reader 5.08 for Linux and it works fine.
>
>Based on some digging I did, the form-based JCA should work with Acrobat
>Reader 5.x and later, across all platforms.  (Acrobat reports that both the
>original PDF, as well as my modified version, conform to PDF version 1.4.
>Apparently the latter corresponds to Acrobat 5.x and later.)
>
>Unfortunately, I have a feeling that non-Adobe software -- particularly
>anything in the open source domain -- will not support form functionality.
>So we can either provide both JCA versions, or require the form-based
>version to be electronically filled in (with the caveat that Acrobat Reader
>is required).  Whatever the decision, you folks have my full support.
>
>On a final note, if you folks are aware of any NetBeans areas that could use
>additional resources, let me know.  I volunteered my time on the 'nbdev'
>mailing list a few weeks ago (see attached), but have gotten no responses
>yet.  Perhaps folks a) think I'm crazy, b) are too engrossed in development
>to consider the offer, or a combination.  Nonetheless, the offer stands.
>
>Cheers,
>-Chris
>
>----- Original Message ----- 
>From: "Jack Catchpoole" <[email protected]>
>Cc: <[email protected]>; <[email protected]>;
><[email protected]>
>Sent: Wednesday, November 26, 2003 5:10 AM
>Subject: Re: [nbmarketing] NetBeans Contribution: Form-Enabled JCA
>
>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> (cc'ing Chris directly as he probably isn't on nbmarketing)
>>
>> [email protected] wrote:
>> > Hi Chris and thank you for your efforts! This is cool and I agree much
>easier.
>> >
>> > Jack do you see an problems with using the JCA in PDF forms?
>> >
>> > Just a side note: Chris, it is great to see that there is an upstate New
>Yorker
>> > working with NetBeans! I was born outside of of Rochester in Batavia,
>NY.
>>
>> Looks great to me!  This would even help us out on this end,
>> we sometimes have trouble deciphering ppl's names and email
>> addresses.
>>
>> Chris, do you know if there are any compatibility problems
>> with this format - ie forms will only work with reader
>> versions later than xyz, don't work on platform abc ... ?
>> I did a quick hunt around online but couldn't find much.
>> Ghostscript on Linux did not work for me, but I installed
>> Adobe Reader 5.08 for Linux and it works fine.
>>
>> As this is a legal document, we will have to run this by
>> some lawyers I expect.  I'll initiate that.
>>
>> Very cool though, thank you Chris :-)
>>
>>
>> -- 
>> Jack Catchpoole
>> NetBeans/Sun Microsystems
>> http://www.netbeans.org/