Grouper Developers Forum

[Jessica Bibbee <>]

MACE-Dir-Groups Conference Call

August 10, 2005

 

*Participants*

Tom Barton, U. Chicago (chair)

Blair Christensen, U. Chicago

Gary Brown, U. Bristol

Minh Nguyen, Stanford U.

John Ballem, Brown U.

R.L. "Bob" Morgan, U. Washington

Brenden Bellina, USC

Ido Carmi, USC

Steve Barrett, Cornell U.

Ann West, EDUCAUSE/Internet2

Steve Olshansky, Internet2

Jessica Bibbee, Internet2 (scribe)

 

New *Action Items*

[AI] {Tom} will work on a brief question/answer introduction page for Grouper.

 

[AI] {Minh} will prepare initial documentation for the Subject API.

 

[AI] {SteveO} and {Tom} will coordinate a separate meeting to discuss documentation plans for Grouper and Signet.  

 

Carry-over *Action Items*

[AI] {Minh} will initiate discussion on the {grouper-dev} list regarding packaging options for the Grouper UI. (27-Jul-05)

 

[AI] {Gary} will check the Grouper UI into CVS. (27-Jul-05)

 

[AI] {Blair} will send out the javadoc for proposed API changes, once it is complete. (13-Jul-05)

 

*Discussion*

The Group discussed the current lack of sufficient documentation for upcoming Grouper releases. {Blair} is updating the javadoc; what other types of documentation are needed - text readme, html readme, roadmap, manual/implementation resources, tutorial? Is there a particular standard that the Group wants to use here? The Group agreed that some sort of multi-level documentation is needed and would benefit the entire community.

 

{John} asked if there were any plans for documentation on provisioning – areas such as connectors and loaders. {Tom} said that there is a reliance on the general community to feed these group management tools back in to the Group; {Walter} from Memphis will be collaborating on thoughts for a Groups Registry. {John} expressed interest in finding a standard way to talk to Grouper in XML; he will contribute effort in this area.

 

Additional information to be added into Grouper documentation includes design ideas, principles, provisioning, views, threads for administrators and developers, etc. It would be useful to have a simple document that explains how and what you would use the UI and API for. [AI] {Tom} will work on a brief question/answer introduction page for Grouper. [AI] {Minh} will prepare initial documentation for the Subject API.

 

It was also suggested that perhaps the documentation can be written for various audiences (novice, user, developer, etc), and thus housed as separate chapters within a concept guide. The information needs to be kept up to date, and open enough to handle substantial changes as Grouper is modified. At what point will this documentation be absolutely necessary? The Group discussed a need for outside resources that could assist in the documentation of inclusive and coherent material, no later than the release of v1.0. Any questions or feedback received could serve as a starting point for the documentation process. [AI] {SteveO} and {Tom} will coordinate a separate meeting to discuss documentation plans for Grouper and Signet.

 

It is hoped that v1.0 for Grouper and Signet will be released before the next Spring 2006 Internet2 Member Meeting; more information will follow as the actual release dates near. A deployment workshop may also prove beneficial.

 

There are still a few items to work on before the nearing Grouper API v0.6 release, including minor bug fixes, quickstart packaging, showing roots and getting back from Group stem, etc. There are some issues with the creating and deleting of subgroups with a substantial number of members. When trying to delete top-level groups, quickstart takes a while to process the access privileges, etc.

 

in terms of packaging, the goal is to have a downloadable version that will give the user a running demonstration. One can make the UI customizable by downloading, then duplicating to make changes..

 

{Tom} mentioned that he had a very short turnaround time when running a search within a database of 16,000. This suggests that there are no performance issues in terms of overload. The Group will follow up on discussion of coding for sub-string searches.

 

The next MACE-Dir-Groups call will be held on Wednesday, August 24, 2005 at 12pm ET.