Lightweight Ad Hoc Collaboration Lessons from field studies of collaborative systems Sync among personal devices differs from sync with collaborators People retain file versions in an idiosyncratic manner Collaborators aren’t sure who has the most recent version of a file Cimetric An application to support lightweight ad hoc collaboration Replicated personal workspace Shared, locally-replicated, versioned repository Check-in / check-out model No centralized server required Awareness of system and user state

Cimetric architecture repository Ted’s stuff Separate replication of working files and repositories Single version of working files; multi-versioned repositories Check-in/out bridges between personal stuff and stuff shared with colleagues User chooses when to adopt new repository versions Opportunistic synchronization using Cimbiosys replication platform Optional cloud repository replica Peers identify and join existing collaborations by broadcast, via the cloud, or manually working files Home working files Laptop repository repository working files working files Work Work repository repository working files Laptop repository check out/check in synchronize repository Doug’s stuff synchronize working files

Cimetric User Interface Replica properties dialog: Details of peer replicas Controls sync period Join collaboration dialog: Finds collaborators by broadcast Enumerates cloud replica Allows user to add peers manually Recent sync notification Check in/out: Optimistic concurrency control Repository annotations: Advisory locks Textual notes Workset notifications: File out of date File modified Workset pane Repository pane Repository conflict: Dominant versions with different provenance (e.g., branches) History dialog: Repository shows only dominant versions History shows older versions Workset file properties dialog: Details of replication metadata