CCF is a software system that supports collaborative, distributed, computer-based problem solving in the natural sciences, business, government, and in educational environments. The goal is to evolve a virtual environment for distributed computation that supports integrated human AV communication, high performance heterogeneous computing and distributed data management facilities. CCF is a research project at Emory University involving the Math/Computer Science and Chemistry departments.
This is alpha release 0.99 of CCF -- Collaborative Computing Frameworks.
This software is provided as is with no warranty expressed or implied. We hope you find it useful, but we won't be held responsible for any damage that may occur from reading, compiling, installing, using, or even thinking about it.
CCF is Copyright (C) 1996 by Emory University except for the code in directories GSM, LPC, LPC10 in the CCFaudio directory and is distributed under the terms of GNU General Public License (GPL) and the GNU Library General Public License (LPGL). The files COPYING and COPYING.LIB in each directory will tell exact licensing restrictions.
This package is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the license, or (at your option) any later version.
CCF was created by Vaidy Sunderam, Injong Rhee, Alan Krantz, Shun Yan Cheung, Julie Sult, Soeren Olesen, Paul Gray, Phil Hutto, Sarah Chodrow, Michael Hirsch, Ted Goddard, Mic Grigni, N. Balaguru, Jim Nettles, Luigi Marzilli, Sue Onuschak, Scott Childs, Kevin Williams.
The CCF project is sponsored by the U.S. National Science Foundation under the multidisciplinary challenges initiative.
CCF currently supports three platforms: IRIX-6.2, SunOS-5.6, and SunOS-5.5.1. The SunOS-5.6 version is the most thoroughly tested.
The clearboard is the tool that allows users to make annotations on the ccsm desktop. The annotations are associated with the ccsm window itself rather than with each individual application window. Thus, if application windows are moved, the annotations will remain in place. The clearboard is launched via the "Tools" menu of the ccsm (see the ccsm README for more information).
The polyline and freehand modes of clearboard used a fixed size buffer of points (currently 256). Once the current annotation exceeds 256 points, no further points are accepted.
Creating a large number of annotations will slow redisplay considerably because annotations are realized using the X SHAPE extension.
CCF Clearboard is an annotation tool that allows a user to mark an exsisting window with a mark that is a shaped window. CCF Clearboard is exceptionally useful when run under the CCF Virtual Desktop ccsm. Since all users see the same desktop (wysiwis), multiplexing the marks makes sense. CCF Clearboard can be run standalone, however, it then does not take advantage of the cctl transport layer.
To create a mark using CCF Clearboard, press the "Create Mark" button. This will bring up a pulldown menu for the user to select a mark type. Once a type is selected, the user is in drawing mode and the mark type appears in the "Create Mark" button. Drawing mode is denoted by the cursor changing to a pencil and the mark type being in the left most button.
Once a user is in drawing mode, pressing the left button in the clearboard window (the Virtual Desktop when running under ccsm) will start the drawing. For most marks, dragging the mouse and releasing the left button will create the mark. For the poly line, each click of the left button creates a point and clicking the middle button finishes the line. For a text mark, a click of the left button will denote the beginning of the text and a second click of the left button will complete the text.
To draw an arrow, move the mouse pointer to the location where you want the tail of the arrow. Click and hold the left mouse button. Next, drag the mouse pointer to where you want the head of the arrow and release the left mouse button.
To draw freehand, move the mouse pointer to the location where you want to begin drawing. Click and hold the left mouse button and begin to draw. To "pick up" the pen, simply release the mouse button. Note that on the SGI, it is possible for the display to run out of points using freehand drawing.
To draw lines, move the mouse pointer to the location where you want to begin a line and click the left mouse button. Next, move to the other end of this line and click again with the left mouse button. This will mark the end of the first line as well as the beginning point of the second line. Continue drawing lines in this fashion until you are finished. The middle mouse button will drop the lines onto the virtual desktop so that everyone can see it.
To draw a rectangle, move the mouse pointer to the location where you want one corner of the rectangle to appear. Click and hold with the left mouse button. Drag the cursor to the location where you want the opposite corner of the rectangle, and release the mouse button.
To draw a circle, move the mouse pointer to the location where you want the center of the circle. Click and hold the left mouse button. Drag the cursor until you have a circle of the desired shape and size and release the mouse button.
To type text, move the mouse pointer to where you want the text to begin, click the left mouse button, and begin typing. To drop the text, click the left or right mouse button.
To change the drawing color, click in the Color box with the left mouse button. Select a new color and click the left mouse button again.
To change the font size, click the Font box with the left mouse button.
To change the width of the annotations, click the Width box with the left mouse button. Select "more brush" or "less brush" by clicking with the left mouse button.
To hide all of the annotations temporarily, click "Hide Marks" with the left mouse button. To make the annotations reappear, click on "Show Marks" with the left mouse button.
To move an annotation, click and hold the left mouse button on it and drag it to a new location. As the annotation is moving, other users will see your name associated with this annotation.
To delete an annotation, click on it with the right mouse button.