Team:Freiburg Software/User/Guide

Getting Started

Before we tell you what SynBioWave is, we would like to tell you what it is not:
SynBioWave is not a software that you have to download, install and then run on you local PC. SynBioWave is not a stand-alone web application that runs on a server somewhere.
But: SynBioWave is an extension to the Wave environment.

Wave? What is that?

The concept of the online collaboration environment wave may be familiar to some of you. If that is the case you may simply skip this paragraph.
Wave was first introduced by Google in 2009. For further information please see the used technologies section.
SynBioWave was developed and currently runs using Google Wave. That's why you will need an account there if you want to test it. If you already have a google account (for Google Mail or Calender) you can simply use this one.
Now log in to Google Wave! It should look something like this:
Communication on wave is done within the so called wavelets. You can think of the wavelets like email correspondences, instant messenger conversations or forum threads. In fact they are a mixture of all of those.
While people communicate in the wave via text messages, they can edit or delete old messages, import media files like pictures, videos and sounds and use special wave extensions: Gadgets and Robots. SynBioWave makes use of the latter two.
To open a new wavelet simply click the "blank wave" button in the right area