On 07/02/2007, at 3.25, Hans-Christoph Steiner wrote:
This is something that we have discussed a lot in the PDDP
meetings. Basically, the idea is to have a [pd META] subpatch in
every help file. That subpatch would contain metadata that is each
contained in a single comment. Example meta data would be
category, library description, version, etc.
And reading from another emails, example META-data could also be
keywords. In other words, the information in the META sub-patches is
likely to be the same kind of information that is wanted in the
database.
To avoid project overlap, double-work and redundancy, i agree that
there should be a central place for that information, and the other
place just sync from it.
Then the help browser will be dynamically built using this meta
data, so that the categories would be menu items. I think it would
be quite cool to implement this parser in Pd, but it's not
essential. Otherwise it should probably be C or Tcl, just because
those are already in place for Pd. I have a proof of concept
sketch working already.
Given that the META sub-patch is the central location for the
information - which i guess would be the easiest way around it, and
would collide less with the PDDP - i still think that the database
(PDDB) would be a good tool.
It will let anyone easily (if connected to the internet) browse the
information without having such browser installed into Pd. The good
thing being that the information is accessible (again, given one have
an internet connection) independently of which version of Pd one is
using. And also independently of what libs/externals one might have
installed, such that one can search for a object that does a desired
thing without priorly having it installed.
But if you want to own this, then it's yours.
Thanks, but no thanks. I'm not sure i have the skills to develop it,
and there are yet much to many open questions for me about all this.
I hope, by this email, to get something straight.