Ian Spangler
Human Avatar Project (Thesis): Online Database Tool
show_words.cfm
life_sentence_v1_15.html

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SUMMARY: I created a database management tool to support the production of my thesis project. The current prototype for my project (an unconventional game) features a transpersonal human avatar whose thoughts can be collectively created by multiple users from a dynamically evolving set of words that stream through a mental reservoir. This browser-based tool allows me to add, update, and delete from a collection of words and to catalog them according to their individual parts of speech, associated emotions and situations (categories).

For more details on the thesis project, you may visit:
http://a.parsons.edu/~ispangler/thesis/project


SUCCESSES: 

I set up a series of tables (words, emotions, parts of speech, categories) that can be individually modified or extended in an easy fashion.

I can add a new word and all of its attributes through one form, which successfully catalogs the word across multiple tables, placing it in the master word table, the emotion_word map, part_of_speech_word_map, and the category_word_map in the correct number of instances.

The add and update_record forms always bring in the current set of categories, emotions, and parts of speech without my having to change the form selections manually.

I was able to display fields of information from multiple tables congruently in one html page. (All "map" tables show the actual names that pertain to each id for easy reference).

All of the .cfm pages link to one other through a common navigation include that can be easily updated.

I was able to use flash remoting to display all words from the category "initial" in my Flash prototype, and to read in each word's part of speech, storing it inside a Flash variable. Checking the part of speech against a set of basic grammar rules that I wrote in an XML document, the program provides a general grammar guide for users to form logical sentences in the avatar's mind bubble.


PROBLEMS:

update_record.cfm: I came close, but was not quite able to get my code to update a word's information correctly through the UPDATE function in the cases in which two or more instances of the word are being updated simultaneously. Instead, I ended up DELETING all records containing a certain word_id and then immediately INSERTING the new desired information. The only downside to this seems to be that the new information always gets moved to a brand new record at the bottom of the map table.

flash_remoting.cfm: I have not yet figured out how to read in multiple parts of speech for each word in my Flash prototype. Hence for now, all words that are currently being displayed there only have one associated part of speech.

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