In-diagram documentation [Was: Motivation for having a 'text color' that is invisible]

[Lars Clausen <lars raeder dk>]

On Sat, 2007-10-27 at 14:01 -0400, Michael Ross wrote:
> In the development  environment of LabVIEW, we place functional icons
> - subroutines.  They are connected by wires of data.  The whole
> business is self documenting, if you use it with that intent.  When
> you bring your cursor above an icon a couple things can happen, tip
> strips can arise with whatever text in it you like.  Also there is
> Context - Help that displays notes in a window, if it is activated
> (there are other functions as well and the Context Help can contain
> links to more in depth Help).  The Icons also have a label and a
> caption which are toggled visible by either manual or programmatic
> means. 

So you're describing two kinds of documentation here: User-input "tip
strips" that appears like tooltips for widgets and which gives hints on
the role of an object instance in the particular diagram, and
programmed-in "context help" shown in a separate window that gives hints
on how to use an object.  Is that correct?  I can see the use of both,
but neither is something I'm seeing as likely to happen in this release.
The "tip strip" should probably not be added until we have the
properties better structured, so as to not increase the size of the
properties dialogs even more.  The fancy version of course would allow
editing the tip strip in place:)

-Lars