[LON-CAPA-dev] Help text

[Scott Harrison]

I was actually going to place myself inside lonnet since
everything else is there. :)

Gerd Kortemeyer wrote:
> 
> Hmm ...
> 
> I actually had the following idea a little while ago:
> 
> We will put new headers on the admin pages anyway, so there will be a
> header-producing routine in lonnet. It will look something like this:
> 
> $r->print(&Apache::lonnet::pageheader('Spreadsheet','grading'));
> 
> and puts up the correct role header. For "advanced" users, it also produces a
> "Help" and a "Bug" link.
> 
> These do not go to a third all-new structure, but just go a the FAQ and
> Bugzilla. There is a table in the system like this
> 
> grading    134    Instructor+Interface
> 
> which means that these links will go to
> 
> http://help.loncapa.org/fom/cache/134.html
> http://bugs.lon-capa.org/buglist.cgi?component=Instructor+Interface
> 
> - Gerd.
> 
> Scott Harrison wrote:
> 
> > Dear Matthew:
> >
> > > Well, I doubt there will be so many help pages at first that we cannot
> > > easily add in any tags needed for indexing.  I think it is more valuable
> > > at this time to actually have help pages.  What metadata do these pages
> > > need to have in order to be indexed automagically?
> >
> > The only "metadata" would be title and hierarchy.
> > The target directory location would be the hierarchy... (maybe we don't
> > want a hierarchy, but anyways...) for instance:
> > + Instructor Tools
> >   + Spreadsheet
> >   + Plotting equations
> >   + RAT
> >   + Class lists
> > + General information
> >   + Remote control
> >   + Roles
> >   + Answering Problems
> >
> > (And of course, this should be in sync ... and draw from ...
> >  help.lon-capa.org).
> >
> > And then, students may not want to be bothered with instructor
> > tools...
> >
> > >
> > > >(Ideally, the interface help pages would streamline nicely
> > > >down the vertical partition toward the actual documented
> > > >code base.  But...priorities...priorities..)
> > > I have no idea what that means :)
> > >
> >
> > Pressman, Rumbaugh, etc; a lot of standard books on
> > software engineering talk about horizontal layers
> > and vertical partions.
> >
> > Horizontal layers "make sense of the system".
> > That is to say, they are the levels of computer services
> > that exist.
> >
> > For example,
> >
> > ---------- LON-CAPA web interface ------------------------
> > ------------- Apache::* libraries ------------------------
> > ---------------- mod_perl --------------------------------
> > ----------------- apache ---------------------------------
> > -- shared libraries (including CPAN libraries) -----------
> > ----------------- kernel ---------------------------------
> >
> > Contrastingly, vertical partitions are how the software
> > design proceeds across the horizontal layers to provide
> > user services.
> >
> > So, restated, ideally, there would be a clear path from each
> > LON-CAPA interface to the source code documentation
> > that was involved in presenting and processing information
> > from that interface.
> >
> > Testing might ask, horizontally:
> > * are all the kernel and shared libraries present that
> >   need to be present
> > * is the web server running in the right configuration?
> > * mod_perl, is it working?
> > * are all the CPAN libraries present?
> >
> > Vertical partitions might ask, testing-wise,
> > is the metadata database interface working
> > and what is all the source code involved with it?
> >
> > The testing strategy that I have been trying to find
> > time to implement is:
> >
> > Horizontal layer testing in:
> > loncom/build/system_dependencies
> >
> > Vertical partition testing in:
> > loncom/build/weblayer_test
> >
> > Anecdotally...
> >
> >     we are all part of the matrix. :)
> >
> > The blue pill or the red pill?
> >
> > Regards,
> > Scott
> > _______________________________________________
> > LON-CAPA-dev mailing list
> > LON-CAPA-dev@mail.lon-capa.org
> > http://mail.lon-capa.org/mailman/listinfo/lon-capa-dev
> 
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