Use Cases

[Brent Turcotte <brentt@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I was looking at the Use Cases document, and I would like
to add a few of my own.

- Alerts and reminder.
  An example of an alert would be customized aurora (aka northern lights)
forecasts. A customized aurora forecast would take a geomagnetic 
forecast (minor, major or severe geomagnetic storm) and a
local weather forecast.  If the weather was good enough,
an alert would appear.  Cloudier weather would be acceptible
for severe geomagnetic storm, whereas you want it practically
clear for a minor geomagnetic storm.  A customized alert would also
take into consideration the time of day, and possibly your schedule.
A reminder is similiar to an alert, except it applies to scheduled things.

- Edward de Bono's thinking tools
  Edward de Bono has created numerous thinking tools such as the
Six Thinking Hats, CoRT, and others.  The Six Thinking Hats divides
thinking into six different areas: white hat for information; red hat
for emotion; black hat for logical negative (reasons it wouldn't work);
yellow hat for logical positive; green hat for creativity and lateral
thinking; blue hat for control of the hats and the thinking process.
  It would be relatively simple to program one of these tools.  For 
example, a call on the six thinking hats would pop up six branches which
you could add text too.  Of course, you could add more features like
having the tool pop up at a semi-random time or adding time constrants or
being constrained to entering info into one hat at a time.  

- Support for unusual devices
  Handwriting pads, voice recorders, redesigned keyboards (with two or more
cursor key sets), mice with scrollers, foot pads, 3D immersive technology, 
robots, telescopes, radios, musical instruments, embedded devices, etc.

- Cooperative window arrangement
  High on my list is being able to create a few lines of code or the 
equilivant that would place two or more views in a specific place on the
screen at once, and may include calling several applitudes.

- Customized menus and command bars
  I like menus because they pack a lot of options into a small region of
space on the screen.  Zigzag connectivity should bring a new level of
customizability and editability to menus.  

- Fusing databases/datasets
  On the internet you can access thousands of astronomical datasets.  The 
most comprehensive one is "VizieR Service" at 
http://adc.gsfc.nasa.gov/viz-bin/VizieR
While it is an impressive service, it can be improved somewhat with
zigzag connectivity.  For example, I would like to be able to query an 
object like the star Sirius, and be able to pull all the data available
for Sirius across all the datasets.  In addition, it would be nice to be
able to access abtracts for all articles about Sirius from offical sources
like the magazine "Sky and Telescope".  Perferrably, the information would
be arranged and explained in a way that would be easy for ordinary amateur 
astronomers to understand.

- Brent