I seem to be unable to reply and resurrect this thread: (sorry) http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=295810 I'll try to email everyone on there who was interested in this idea. I've been bouncing the idea of a living design document around for a while and it seems that there isn't something out there that does everything a software company would need a design document to do for them. As far as I know, the current design document is a printout thicker then war & peace which very few people will read. I have the intention of creating a free, open source living design document distributed web application for everyone to use. At the same time that I'm developing this application, I'm going to attempt to keep it as modular as possible, so anyone can plug in peices which they want to use and keep other peices out so they can "customize" the application to be tailored to a project. Sounds challenging, eh? All feedback is very very welcome, so if you have anything you want to see put into this project, please reply to this post. I'm pretty excited about this project. Here is a link to my current design document (raw text file, sorry for poor readability.): http://www.digitalvisionsdesign.com/Nalle/Documents/Design%20Doc.txt And if you don't feel like clicking on the link, here is a copy/paste of the pre-planning stage version of the design document for this project at the time of this posting: --------------------------------------------------------------- Project Code Name: Nalle Project Type: Project Manager & Living Design Document Version: Pre-planning stage PEOPLE:Project Manager: Eric Nevala (ericnevala@hotmail.com) Coder: Eric Nevala Interface Design & Graphics: Eric Nevala @ Kevin Hoag (khoag@digitalvisionsdesign.com) SPECS:Platforms: All web users Database: MySQL Language: PHP Vision: To create a program/application which helps a person effectively & efficiently manage a large complicated software project. Reasons this is needed: -Currently there seems to be nothing that gives the software design document solid organization and management -Project teams can be distributed world-wide and communication may differ because of time zones and personal schedules. This lets everyone communicate efficiently. -This will be a distributed website application built on a webserver with PHP and MySQL. -The application will be provided as open source free to all the world to use as they wish under the GPL. Donations would be nice. Features: -Can contain multiple projects at the same time -Can modify the application on the fly (ie, adding items to a drop down menu if it doesn't exist) -User Permission based access -Administrative access login -Projects contain an auto-updating table of contents -Project Summary sheet will have the ten most recent updates -Projects/Project Features will have a watch list which can automatically send an email to someone if anything changes -Discussion available for each item on every level, ala forum style. -Design document can be modified on the fly. It can be set up so only the project leads modify it, or anyone modifies it. I envision a process where a proposal for additional features/changes is made, its discussed & debated, and then either approved or denied by the project lead. -Multiple “Views” of sections/document. More specifically – each section can have different paragraphs describing an item for different users i.e. Managers; Artists; Programmers. The “View” is basically a filter that can be set by user to display only what user needs to see and based on User’s role. -Printer-Friendly format (so you can print the freaking war of peace sized design doc!). Maybe PDF version if I can figure out the export functions. Will contain version & timestamp on front page. Sections: -Main: -Displays a list of all projects for a person who is logged on -Projects -Views specific project information, sub tasks, and details on everything related to a project -How much time has been invested in a project/task -How much money has been spent on a project/task -Who is involved in a project/task, lead manager responsible for the project/task -People -Allows a person to add people to their list of contacts -Organizational chart for the project (leads, producers, grunts, etc) and their roles. -Reports -Provides overall project information, such as project status, timeline progression and deadlines, time invested, money invested, -Admin -Lets the user change preferences Project Specifications & needs: -List of steps to take to accomplish a goal/task -Progress in each goal/task (and progress report) -Deadlines for each step (projected and actual) -Projection for completion based on current status -Cost for each goal/task -Actual time spent on a step/task -Comments and notes on each step/task -People assigned/involved with accomplishing a step/goal -People Roles -Resources required/on hand Optional Features: -Insertion of images, code, diagrams, other parts of the document or other documents and their fragments. REQUIREMENTS: -Needs to have an extremely easy learning curve and intuitive interface! MySQL Database structure: -Projects Table -People Table -Tasks Table Future Options: -Create a ported version using SQL 2000 and C# with .NET. Ideas: -Send annoying email to people who are assigned a task -Allow people to create a username and password to access personal information and project info (login module) -Allow a project to be either private/secret or published to the world ----------------------------------------- edit: formatting [Edited by - slayemin on March 30, 2005 12:19:01 AM]

Feature Request:
- Color-coding of key words such as character and place names
- View by keyword: filter to show all paragraphs/only paragraphs containing one or more keyword

Can you clarify what you mean by color-coding of key words, and how it would be useful?

Veiwing by keyword: There is a search function in most browsers which lets people search for words in a document. Maybe a better idea would be meta-words? but how would that be useful beyond searching? and would that make the software more complicated then it needs to be?

Here is a link to the latest version of the design document:
http://www.digitalvisionsdesign.com/Nalle/Documents/Design%20Document.rtf

The login module is nearly completed. It is the pilot test project for my concept of plug and play modules for a web-application.