[kepler-dev] The 'poor man's Kepler Repository'

[Dan Higgins]

I know that technically any complete workflow is a composite, but you 
cannot select a workflow and use the 'Create Kar from actor menu (It 
only seems to work with single actors).

And I agree that the arbitarary use of 'Create Composite Actor' is just 
lumping things together, perhaps meaninglessly. But I do use it to 
subdivide complex workflows into sets of Composites. But yes, some 
thought is needed in applying this.

My point was just that one can use this to locally create kars from more 
than on actor. And one need only get the workflow via URL to do this. 
Frankly, I don't see a lot of advantage in downloading kars until we can 
include data and java classes in the kars. [That doesn't mean we 
shouldn't do it now in preparation for those capabilities.]

Dan

---

Shawn Bowers wrote:

> Dan Higgins wrote:
>
>> Hi Shawn,
>>    I am not sure I see a lot of cases where one would want to move an 
>> entire workflow to the actor library (and one cannot do that directly 
>> right now even from a local workflow). 
>
>
> Do you distinguish composite actors and workflows? If not, I think there
> are a number of reasons why someone would want to do this. Also, I 
> believe Chad has an initial version of this working, i.e., the ability
> to add composites.
>
>> But if you wanted to (or just want to add some collection of actors 
>> to the library), you can select the set of actors (including the 
>> entire workflow), then select 'Tools/Create Composite Actor' and 
>> combine the contents of the selection into a single composite. The 
>> composite can then be put into the library.
>
>
> Doing this sounds more like lumping things together as opposed to having
> a functional unit (composite) ...
>
> -shawn
>
>>
>> Dan
>>
>> Shawn Bowers wrote:
>>
>>> Dan Higgins wrote:
>>> > Hi All,
>>> >     In yesterday's conferece call we spent some time discussing a 
>>> Kepler
>>> > repository. Well, it turns out that you can share workflows using the
>>> > current system and a simple web html server. To see an example:
>>> >
>>> > 1)open Kepler
>>> >
>>> > 2) go to the menu 'File/Open URL..."
>>> >
>>> > 3) enter the url "http://nceas.ucsb.edu/~higgins/R_in_Kepler.html"
>>> >    Kepler will display the R_in_Kepler web page. (Actually it will
>>> > display most web pages; it is a simple web browser)
>>> >
>>> > 4) Click one of the links. The remote workflow will be opened.
>>> >
>>> > 5) You can then run the workflow (all these quick examples require 
>>> R to
>>> > be installed). Or you can select an actor (one of the R actors) and
>>> > "Create KAR from actor..." to add it to the local machine (or save 
>>> the
>>> > workflow)).
>>>
>>> Thanks Dan -- I think this is great.
>>>
>>> What would be cool is if we could get it to recognized kepler archive
>>> files (.kar files), and upon selection, kepler could prompt the user
>>> to either: (1) import the archive (i.e., load it's components into the
>>> library; (2) open the model (if it is a model); or (3) both.
>>>
>>> The current open url functionality allows us to open these external
>>> models, but we can't easily store them into the library ... (only the
>>> underlying actors).
>>>
>>> -shawn
>>>
>>> >
>>> > Dan
>>> >
>>>
>>
>>
>


-- 
*******************************************************************
Dan Higgins                                  higgins at nceas.ucsb.edu
http://www.nceas.ucsb.edu/    Ph: 805-893-5127
National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) Marine Science Building - Room 3405
Santa Barbara, CA 93195
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