Posted by
dscho on
Apr 14, 2009; 6:16pm
URL: http://imagej.273.s1.nabble.com/an-interface-to-encourage-self-documentation-of-plug-ins-tp3692779p3692792.html
Hi,
On Tue, 14 Apr 2009, Adrian wrote:
> One of the factors limiting the re-use of the many high quality plug-ins
> that exist for ImageJ is in my opinion the lack of documentation (there
> are other factors of course). When documentation exists, it is not
> always clear where to find it: in the source, on a web-page, ... ?
>
> I think it might be worth trying to define an interface that would allow
> and encourage plug-in authors to put any information they might judge
> usefull in the view and reach of the users. There has been a weak
> tradition of printing some information when the argument to the
> PlugIn.run() method is "about", but this was to my knowledge never
> really exploited to get information on installed plug-ins, and requires
> programming time for anything beyond IJ.log() statements.
I had a look at your javadoc (at this stage, you should offer links to
.java files, really).
You use Java5-style Java templates. That is nice, but makes sure that it
will not be included in ImageJ anytime soon; ImageJ's minimum Java version
is 1.4 (due to use of the MouseWheelListener).
Besides, it would be better if you defined the interface like this:
String getDocumentation(String field);
rather than having to construct a complete Map, often only for a single
value.
And then, with this interface having free-form identifiers, IMHO you do
not buy much over the "about" you mentioned yourself: Nobody needs to
handle all of the interesting identifiers.
Rather, I'd like to have getAuthor(), getReleaseDate(), getWebsite(), and
then probably getExtra(String identifier);
At least that way you are guaranteed to have more information than you
have now.
Ciao,
Dscho