[MR] OA for O&A (was RE: heraldry)

[Towey, Brian]

Wow!  Office Automation for the Ordinary and Armorial.

(O-A-O-A! O-A-O-A!  Feel it hot hot hot!)

While we're dreaming, I think it would be doable to have a "Paint Your Own
Device" program, where you pick a field, then (optionally) a division or
border, paste some charges on and color them, etc.  You could disable
illegal color combinations, e.g., your field is red, so green is not an
option for your sheep.  As you go, the matching blazon grows in a sidebar.
Then-- and here's the big payoff-- the program makes an Internet query
against the big O&A database in the sky. 

* You click on a vertically divided shield from the Divisions palette, and
choose black and white from the color palette.
* The little shield on the screen turns black and white
* The blazon box says "Per fess sable and argent," 
* The O&A box says [48 items matched case-insensitive blazon pattern="Per
fess sable and argent".]

It would not be too far a stretch to query with each new step and disable
white for your sheep, if white was taken, and offer you only gold.

Once you have a nice design with no conflicts, you click a button and it
sends your submission off in standard format.  A unique blazon, as we all
know now, doesn't guarantee acceptance, but at least you would know about
any obvious conflicts.

Want to draw something that the program won't do?  No problem.  Get out your
paper and crayons and get ready to wait for the manual submission process.

We've got a volunteer for the database and workflow.  We have people
offering libraries of clip art.  I could do the paint program in VB
(eventually), but it might be better in Java.  Any other geeks out there who
want to play along?

-BT

> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Christofe DuBois [SMTP:admin at scahunt.com]
> Sent:	Wednesday, June 06, 2001 2:02 PM
> To:	Merry Rose
> Subject:	Re: [MR] RE: heraldry
> 
> 
	<SNIP>
> Submissions done digitally:  Entered by local Herald and given the status
> PENDING.  The CoH and other reviewing bodies can then simply log onto the
> site, check pending devices and either approve or decline them.  Approved
> devices are checked APPROVED and are instantly added to the database,
> along
> with an email to the local Herald about the approval.  Declined devices
> are
> checked DECLINED, details about the decline are noted, and an email is
> sent
> to the local Herald about the decline.
> 
> And I'd be MORE than happy to build this for you.  THE HUNT is up and
> running, and I'm now positively ITCHING for some more SCA design
> projects...
>