[kepler-dev] [Ptolemy] Re: Actor documentation

[Dan Higgins]

I would think often specific use documentation belongs with the workflow 
(as annotations) rather than with the actor itself. eg a sinewave actor 
can be used for many purposes and one would not want some specific use 
attached to just the actor.

Dan

Adam Cataldo wrote:

>I agree. I think the being able to edit the documentation would be 
>useful even for Kepler. Imagine I model some physical phenomenon with a 
>Sinewave actor.  The documentation for the Sinewave actor says nothing 
>about the physical process I am tryiing to model.  I might want to 
>change the documentation for this instance of the actor to say what the 
>actor really does with respect to the model I'm looking at.
>
>Cheers,
>Adam
>
>Christopher Brooks wrote:
>  
>
>>Here's a half baked idea.
>>
>>I think it would be nice if users could update and comment on
>>documentation.
>>
>>I was thinking it would be cool to have some sort of wiki for actor
>>documentation, or at least something so that users could annotate
>>actor documentation.  The PhP website uses this to great advantage,
>>see
>>http://us2.php.net/manual/en/function.eregi.php 
>>
>>The beauty is that users tend to make note of things that weren't
>>clear or "aha!" moments that they had.  Yah, the comments don't
>>make great reading, but I've found them really useful for PhP, where
>>I'm by no means an expert and often flailing around for a quick 
>>solution.
>>
>>_Christopher
>>
>>--------
>>
>>    
>>    At 10:58 AM 12/19/2005 -0700, Laura L. Downey wrote:
>>    >I'm a little confused here.  Why would the user want to edit the
>>    >documentation?  Or is this "edit" feature supposed to be for creators of
>>    the
>>    >documentation?
>>    
>>    Yes, or to modify the documentation for an instance of the actor,
>>    or to add documentation for a composite actor.  Can you think of a better
>>    phrase than "Edit Documentation"?
>>    
>>    Edward
>>    
>>    [LLD>] 
>>    Oh I'm not opposed to the phrase "Edit Documentation," I was just thinking
>>    that many of the Kepler users would not ever edit the documentation, that i
>>   s
>>    sort of like an advanced feature -- maybe only creators of new actors (the
>>    owners) would have the permission to edit the associated documentation.  I
>>    would also expect that we wouldn't want the documentation edited on the bas
>>   e
>>    set of actors that ships with Kepler.  But maybe my assumptions are wrong..
>>   .
>>    I can't see any issue though with Ptolemy putting in "Edit Documentation" a
>>   s
>>    a menu item.  Kepler can certainly hide or reveal the menu item as
>>    appropriate, I would assume.  (un oh more assumptions ) :-)
>>     
>>    Laura
>>    
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>>--------
>>_______________________________________________
>>Ptolemy maillist  -  Ptolemy at chess.eecs.berkeley.edu
>>http://chess.eecs.berkeley.edu/ptolemy/listinfo/ptolemy
>>    
>>
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>


-- 
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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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