Some weeks ago we announced here the coming release of the Whatif web application and commented on its main features. Today we are pleased to be launching the new Whatif 2.0 version and the official website of the project, Whatif.es. [Edit: The website is no longer available and the name has changed, see Local In].
Next you can watch (in spanish) a short video presentation we recorded at the office:
At Whatif.es you will find the following content:
- A presentation of the application, its purpose, its features, etc. An the sidebar there are some widgets with download links, last blog entries, Twitter activity (@whatifopen) and the Facebook page among others.
- The last 2.0 version of whatif.w, available for download together with the installation instructions as a WordPress theme that will allow you to turn a blog into a participatory application.
- A demo with which you can interact entering test messages, navigating through the results, etc.
- The blog of the project, where we will be publishing news, articles and all kind of related contents.
- The changelog and the roadmap, containing the work already done as well as the future goals for the coming versions. We would love you to contribute to it with your ideas and wishes!
The website is adapted to the new graphic identity of the project and is completely bilingual: from any page the visitor can click on the EN-ES icons on the upper-right side and get the content and the interface translated to Spanish or English. We believe that the extra effort we are putting into the translation will be worth it if it allows us to reach a wider international community of potential users and collaborators.
Although the website is currently centered on whatif.w, we will be including the new versions in development: the mobile application whatif.m for Android (also planned for iPhone), the plugin that will connect it to the online version, and any related one.
During some time from now whatif.w 2.0 will be tagged as beta. This is just a way of saying that the application is already usable but may still contain error or things that need some polish and won’t probably be visible until different users begin to test it under various conditions. During the first weeks we will be paying special attention to any doubt or problem you have in order to improve this version, and we’ll be opening soon a space for debate as well, for your suggestions to be implemented on the coming version 2.1 and following ones.
Note: The Whatif WordPress theme itself isn’t translated yet, we will be doing this over the next weeks. If you want to help us with it, contact us and we will gladly give you all the support and acknowledgement.
We encourage you to visit the website, to subscribe to the blog feed if you’re interested, and to send us your impressions. We hope that those of you who have some WordPress knowledge will get your hands on it, install it on your web hosts and even modify it to adapt it to your tastes or needs. We will be creating a collection of projects done with the help of this digital tool, sharing modified versions, thinking of ways to improve it, hoping that as time goes by there will be growing a small development community around Whatif and the project itself will become alive.