TK3
I liked it. Okay? I might be the only person in IM who fell into the target audience for TK3, but I thought it was pretty cool. And it gave me SO many ideas for projects that I can actually implement *by myself*. I think it is an excellent program for artists like myself to use to get content out there in a way that a)demonstrates our seriousness and committment to the project and b)clearly communicates a concept piece to a group of programmers who could collaborate with us.
Projects I would use TK3 for:
A family photo album that could compile text, audio, video, and pictures, as well as link to more information about the time period that family member was living in.
Script notations! I think this program is a dramaturg's dream! You could make notes, add blocking, camera angles, attach your storyboard(I'm combining theatre and film terms here), as well as attach inspirational images, sounds, other texts, and research you've done. And all this in one package that you could easily carry around and show to your collaborators.
And today was the first time I seriously looked at digital books as a possibility in my future. Because I could "dogear", higlight, and make notes, it seemed much more a possibility for me. Because those are the very things I enjoy doing to my books that I can't do when I'm reading them online.
Comments
I feel ya! For me, I don't think anything I make in TK3 would be in its final form, however I definitely think it could be useful in quickly churning out a prototype. Another great use would be in pitching a project to a potential backer (TK3 may have really helped us in our 511 Finals!)
Posted by: Michael Steffen | January 20, 2004 5:57 PM
I have mixed feelings about TK3. It obviously represents a huge amount of effort, and as an 'non-technical' e-book authoring environment, it's great.
That being said, it seems like an 'almost' there type of thing... While the annotations are well thought out, it's completely locked up and can't be synced. The interface is nice, but it's impossible to extend or change functionality. While its multimedia abilities are decent, there's not really anything that couldn't be done pretty easily in say Flash (especially w/ MX components).
Now, I'm not trying to knock it in any way. It's a great attempt to do something very specific, and definitely serves as an inspiration if nothing else, however there are certain aspects that really make me go eh.
Posted by: leonard | January 20, 2004 6:48 PM
I don't like it, my idea is limited by TK3 for more than ten times. -__-
Posted by: jenova | January 21, 2004 12:14 PM
leonard - I only disagree with what you said about things being easier in Flash with MX. I worked with flash for a couple of hours and wasn't able to do much. However, I feel like I might be able to actually pump out a finished product in a couple of hours through TK3. Maybe it's the lesser steep of the learning curve that I find most appealing about TK3.
Posted by: kellee | January 21, 2004 12:42 PM
Kellee, I actually agree with you about the Flash thing. For ease in that respect, I was actually talking about creating functionality equivalence of the actual format, and not really the authoring environment/content creation itself. Not very clear, I know.
Just some other thoughts:
* If you're writing an ebook, there has to be a significant advantage to not create an Adobe PDF
* If you're working on collaborative writing or hypertext, there has to be a significant advantage to using the Web (wiki, blog, etc)
* If you're creating multimedia slideshows, there needs to be some significant advantage to using Powerpoint, Keynote, or even say iPhoto.
* If you're working on anything more complex or esoteric, you're can't use the thing anyway.
Now, just because I'm never going to use the current version of TK3 for anything doesn't mean I'm down on it. I'm glad it's there, for what it stands for, however the tradeoff of completely smashing the flexibility in service flattening the learning curve I think is flawed. It is possible to have both power and simplicity. A lot of collective brain power has been put into that problem both from human factors and pedagogical perspectives.
Also, I can understand for something that they started working on 5 years ago why they did what they did, but beyond the price paid in functionality, they're also continuing to pay a continual toll by having an obscure format that doesn't really offer clear advantages, but is saddled with all kinds of natural disadvantges.
It's important that TK3 is there, and I hope it continues to improve at its goals and for its target audience. But, I'm glad it's a bit obscure I guess, because I think that there are a lot of tradeoffs made that I think are fundamentally wrong. I guess I can't really avoid using the program seeing as we have assignments in class on it (which, I actually see as a good thing for the most part), but I don't see myself ever voluntarily using this tool except for reference (picking out the good ideas) if I were to work on developing an authoring environment that I thought was 'done right.'
Posted by: leonard | January 21, 2004 7:51 PM