Writer's AI:

Hi!

I recently posted a message about a new Portable Opera which we called Writer's AI--a research appliance for writers.

Opera© is already a fantastic research tool; Writer's AI just adds guidance on the best research sequence to use.

Since most people would rather run it from the Desktop, we've recast it as an Opera Setup. After getting feedback from you, we're going to submit it to Opera Software ASA as a downloadable Setup.

The whole Writer's AI project has consumed the better part of six months work, and has sort of grown into a pet project, so we sincerely ask you to install our toolbar.ini and menu.ini from the link which I'll give in a minute.

If you'd like to test out Writer's AI's "Printer Friendly" capabilities, please do the follwing. After installing our Setup, which was made for Opera© 9, please click the button on the browser face called "Writer's AI Tutorials" and do the Tutorial called "Finalizing The Installation."

The link to our INI files is:
http://gistbook.com/writersaihome/dnupdates/

Thanks very much in advance for your feedback, comments, criticisms, etc.!

Best,

- Boyd Stone & Victoria Stone

Introducing Writer's AI (CD Version), a customization of Opera© 9. Writer's AI is made for Windows and 1024x768 or higher resolution, and was made from the International setup version of Opera© 9. Its plugins folder includes (I believe, we'd like feedback on this) the needed *.dll files. That's the reason the executable has a larger file size than you may be used to with Opera©.

Writer's AI (CD Version) is made to be a fully operational Opera© browser that runs from a CD-ROM disk and without installation on a computer. It handles Bookmarks by storing them at del.icio.us. Our rationale for wanting Writer's AI to run from a disk is, first, that USB sticks are at least somewhat vulnerable to malware infections; CD-ROMs aren't. And secondly, not all computers at libraries have USB ports, but all of them (I believe--does anyone know differently?) can handle CD-ROMs.

Opera© is already a fantastic research tool; Writer's AI just adds guidance on the best research sequence to use.

Like Yuku' s Opera Portable Writer's AI runs by simply clicking on the executable. While it's running, it lives in the Windows Temp folder. After shutdown the Writer's AI folder is deleted (I called it ifilecheck so it wouldn't stick out like a sore thumb amongst the other contents of the Temp folder). Writer's AI was packed with Yuku's NSIS script as modified by, I believe, William A. Price.

We made Writer's AI using the procedure you can read about by clicking the link below. Our starting point was the article at opera.com called "Using Opera as a CD-ROM front-end."

I understand no warranty is offered on the linked procedure.

To download Writer's AI please click the link below:

Click Here to download

After running it click on Writer's AI Tutorials on the middle right part of the browser, just under "Printer Friendly 2."

REQUEST FOR FEEDBACK:

• Do the Flash Demos work, in other words are the plugins set up correctly?
  
• Would Writer's AI be better in the form of a Widget?
  

The second point is one I'm super interested in getting feedback on. Would this be better as a Widget?

Hi!

I haven't posted in a long time, but every day I continue to work on our customization of Opera© which we call Writers AI.

Today I'll be adding more tutorials and making some minor changes to the Personal Bar.

More tomorrow,

- Boyd
--
Boyd Stone

We made a few more pages today.

Content will be added shortly.