[PD] Using "all_about_x" patches as abstractions in help files

[Hans-Christoph Steiner]

Glad to see you thinking about improving the docs :)  We tried the  
abstraction thing before, but got in trouble because so much stuff got  
loaded when loading a single help patch, then there were also  
seemingly endless loops of loading.

I'd prefer to get pddplink working well and use it throughout.  It  
seems to be the best approach, provided it works.  Can you describe  
the problem with pddplink or provide an example patch?

.hc

On Jan 3, 2010, at 1:55 PM, Jonathan Wilkes wrote:

> Currently, the help patches in the reference folder have two ways of
> referring to the "all_about_x" patches:
>
> 1) comments in the form of "docs/reference/all_about_x
> 2) pddplink
>
> The first option requires the user to open the patch manually, which  
> is
> klunky because the last patch opened is probably different than the
> reference folder (not to mention the fact that the reference folder  
> has
> hundreds of patches in it).  The second option currently stinks  
> because
> pddplink is buggy (at least on winxp: for example, I can't open the
> link listed in ctlin-help.pd).
>
> But what about using the "all_about_x" patches as abstractions in the
> relevant help patches?  So for example: under the "more_info"  
> heading in
> float-help.pd, instead of the comment "all_about_data-types.pd",  
> just have
> [all_about_data-types], which the user can open with one click.  Those
> patches aren't particularly complex, so it shouldn't affect load  
> time of
> the help patches very much (I think), but it would greatly improve
> navigation.  And unlike pddplink, typos would be obvious because the  
> abstraction wouldn't create.
>
> What do people think?
>
> -Jonathan
>
>
>
>



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