Re: Function documentation dialog [was Re: Gnumeric 1.1.90 comments]

[Patrick <pabos glypsube org>]

On Fri, 2003-09-12 at 20:09, Jody Goldberg wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 12, 2003 at 07:47:47PM -0700, Patrick wrote:
> > On Fri, 2003-09-12 at 12:25, Jody Goldberg wrote:
> > > On Thu, Sep 11, 2003 at 06:56:08PM -0700, Patrick wrote:
> > > > DOCUMENTATION
> > > > (1) What needs to be done to get the function library popup dialog
> > > > completed?
> > >
> > > In what sense ?  The docs are not fantastic, but the poor
> > > translators have sweated blood to translate them.  We need to give
> > > that subsystem more power (image, equations, links) but the task has
> > > lacked someone with the time to drive it forward.
> >
> > I wasn't very clear but I meant fleshing out the documentation.
> > Currently I see three functions: gnumeric_version, product and sum. When
> > I can see more detail then I'll start talking about improving the
> > content display capabilities... :)
>
> Oh !  You're in for a bit of a treat then :-)
> There is a rare bug that sometimes disables all of the installed
> plugins when people update.  We've never managed to replicate it.
>
> - Go to Tools -> Plugins
> - Enable all of the functions and i/o plugins. 
> - Look at the list again :-)

Ooh. Ok, that is an impressive amount of work already accomplished.
What format is the help text stored in? A custom XML? If so is it
read natively or first transformed in XHTML?

While I am getting very tired of filing bugs right now I think I may have
one more. Plugins seems like an implementation detail to me which
does not need to be exposed (except to developers and administrators
who set the plugin directory paths). Could plugins return their purpose so
that they could be better organized? I'm especially thinking of:
 - File format filters
 - Functions
 - Chart types
 - Features (for lack of a better term; adding to menus/toolbars/dialogs)

This makes more sense to me and would make choosing which plugins to
activate much easier. The little function browser which you just showed me
how to fill in with functions could even have a button on it [ More Functions ]
and then list all of the inactive function plugins. This seems like an intuitive
spot to place it.

Additionally, unless the enable/disable plugin is meant also for security
purposes, if a user is opening a file which is not active it might be
useful to automatically activate the corresponding import/export plugin
for that file format.