[PD] multi-language help patches

Jonathan Wilkes jancsika at yahoo.com
Sat Feb 27 19:09:09 CET 2016


> I feel one of the best aspects of PD are the examples via help patches so maybe splitting things up outside of PD might work against that?
That is definitely a great feature.  If there's a way to keep that and add sane multi-language support, that would 
be the way to go.
-Jonathan
 

    On Friday, February 26, 2016 7:08 PM, Dan Wilcox <danomatika at gmail.com> wrote:
 

 Also, my thinking is going in this direction as we’re dealing with the same issues in the OpenFrameworks community. My uni department just hosted an OF DocSprint last weekend and we spent a good amount of time wrangling how best to integrate a Markdown + Doxygen generated reference system.
Of course pure data patch files and C++ source files are somewhat different, but I feel there are the same issues to solve such as what requires the most maintenance, works on all platforms, and is easy for non developer contributors to use. It’s one thing to build a custom system (we did) and quite another to get people to pitch in and fill the content in. I just wouldn’t want anyone to spend a lot of time making something admittedly cool and built into the canvas but, in the end, may not be leveraged by the community the same way a portable, easy to edit, cross platform standard might.

--------
Dan Wilcox
@danomatika
danomatika.com
robotcowboy.com

On Feb 26, 2016, at 5:01 PM, Dan Wilcox <danomatika at gmail.com> wrote:



Ok, so which html reference system should I leverage here?

Probably something using css and an html template that make it easy for people to fill out. I’d say 1 main html file for each object to document w/ room for sub pages if needed. Different languages can live in different folders.
The nice thing about this approach is lots of people can edit html, there are plenty of designers, the files can be rendered by pretty much anything, etc. Another option is to have a templating system that uses Markdown, etc and just renders to html. It can then live in it’s own source repository for shared work and be used as a basis for online as well as distributed documentation.
Maybe a good start would be to look at the pure data object database/wiki that is around somewhere. I can’t find the link off the top of my head.

Where will 
the html files get stored, and how do we get from clicking the link in the 
help patch (I'm assuming we're still using the current help patches to show 
a simple demo of the object) to opening the html doc in the correct language?

Just like opening a help patch with a context menu option or maybe links we can open from the patch itself. Use the current help paths for searching and use tcl to launch the path in the system web browser if found.
I’d say the most useful thing would be add linking between patches and external files (html, etc) in general. I believe Hans had this in extended for the pd-doc stuff.
I’m suggesting this approach partially so you/we don’t end up reinventing the wheel. A custom, integrated system would be *nice* but I feel that will require too much backend work to build and them probably too much work to maintain/extend in the future. HTML+CSS has the option of being loaded into a web view within TK I imagine, so another option would be a side pane or extra window that can open up right in PD. I’d suggest staying away from building extra widgets etc to render a custom approach within the patch itself.
--------
Dan Wilcox
@danomatika
danomatika.com
robotcowboy.com

On Feb 26, 2016, at 4:44 PM, Jonathan Wilkes <jancsika at yahoo.com> wrote:

-Jonathan 

    On Friday, February 26, 2016 4:34 PM, Dan Wilcox <danomatika at gmail.com> wrote:
 

 I think what implying is that maybe Pd *doesn’t* need to handle it. Simply, Pd could open a local webpage, similar to how the Processing “Find in reference” context menu option works when highlighting a function in the editor.
Not to say you/we can’t work out a file format/system to handle alot of this, but I’m thinking that html reference already works well for many other contexts an doesn’t require building new formats/systems to solve alot of the same problems.
--------
Dan Wilcox
@danomatika
danomatika.com
robotcowboy.com

On Feb 26, 2016, at 2:08 PM, Jonathan Wilkes <jancsika at yahoo.com> wrote:
html could be leveraged, but I'm really looking for a spec for how Pd 
handles it.  Is it a GUI widget?  An abstraction?  A canvas method?  A new 
"#" directive?
Do the translations get saved along with the help patch, or are they stored in 
a directory and fetched when needed?  Etc.
-Jonathan
 

    On Friday, February 26, 2016 1:02 PM, Dan Wilcox <danomatika at gmail.com> wrote:
 

 
I'll implement any *clear* spec for multi-language help patches someone comes up 
with with the following constraints:1. it separates design from content.2. in only requires documentation writers to care about content.3. it does not pigeonhole help patches into having a single, ugly design4. documentation writers will be guaranteed that whatever they write, it won't 
overlap patch content.5. it is maintainable and scalable


Sounds like .html.
--------
Dan Wilcox
@danomatika
danomatika.com
robotcowboy.com

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