Informations for MMAlpha developers
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Documenting a package
Any MMAlpha package must be provided with a documentation directory
which has to be put in the
$MMALPHA/Mathematica/doc/packages
directory.
The best way to see how this should be done is to examine the
example of the Matrix package documentation, place
here.
This directory contains four items:
- The first one is the CVS directory which is created when the package
is added to the CVS repository: just don't care.
- The second idem is a notebook named Matrix.nb. The name
of this notebook must be the same as the name of the package, as
well as the name of the documentation directory. If you do so, your
documentation notebook can be called from anywhere in MMAlpha by
evaluating the expression docLink["Matrix"] which creates
a nice button in your notebook: clicking on this button opens the
notebook.
- The other two items are some files needed to prepare tests. For
example, the file Test.alpha contains an Alpha program, and the file
RTest1 contains the result of some test.
The documentation notebook should follow a standard structure
which is obvious when examining Matrix.nb. Please, try to follow this
structure, and avoid re-inventing your own presentation: this only
makes the software messy, or... takes some of our (precious)
time to adapt your contribution. You find:
- The title
- The author(s)
- The date
- Credits
- An executable cell (in red) which contains an initialization
cell, i.e. a cell that is executed when an expression of the
notebook is evaluated for the first time
once the notebook has been opened.
- Sections decribing the package and giving examples.
It is a good practive to start writing your new package
using such a documentation notebook: just copy this directory
in your own work space, and adapt it. While developing your package,
you will use tests that you can later incorporate into the test
program that you must provide with you package.
Content of this directory
Last modification: May 26, 2006.
To get more info:
Patrice.Quinton@irisa.fr