[kepler-dev] Creating kar files

[Dan Higgins]

Hi All,
    I have been looking at the latest version of Kepler and the ability 
to save new actors. Just before the Beta1 release, Shawn reworked the 
action associated with the 'Save in Library...'  context menu. His new 
'SaveInLibraryDialog' class (in $Kepler/src/org/kepler/ksw/gui/) makes 
it much easier to associate actors with several ontology categories. So 
putting a new/revised actor into the actor tree is pretty easy.
    However, it looks like the code puts the actor directly into the 
object cache in the form of a serialized object, rather than creating a 
*.kar file and there is no obvious way of creating a *.kar file from the 
cache object. I think the earlier version (CreateKSWDialog by 
Chad)actually created a kar file.
    First of all, I am not sure why the cache uses a serialized object 
rather than a kar file (perfomance?). And it seems to me that we do need 
to create a kar at times, if only for local storage. (I assume the 
'Upload to Repository' sends a kar file, but that code appears to be 
broken currently) Also, there is a commented out line in the 
uiContextMenuMappings file for a menu item 'Export as Kepler Archive'.
    So, my question is:

    Do we want to just add the 'Export as Kepler Archive' menu, or 
perhaps modify the new 'Save in Library' dialog to also allow the user 
to create a local kar file?

    Or perhaps we should just use serialized objects like the cache 
does? Of course, these are not human readable/editable files, but 
presumably when the actor has been added to the list, it can be dragged 
to the work area and edited there.

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
*******************************************************************