Diff: ActionAuthoring

-{DSP: I need an example that is a bit more concrete to get this. Let me indicate what I do (or don't) understand up to this point through the use of an example. Assume we wanted to create access to a set of regression tools through the use of a menu bar pull-down called "Regression", one of the options within this menu would be "Logistic Regression", which would then have sub-options (using a cascading menu) of "Logit" and "Probit". My understanding that to implement what I've indicated thus far would result in the following XML code (placed in a file called "description.xml", but I'm not sure where this file would live): 

-{TF: Actually, there's not one big description.xml defining the entire menu-structure, but rather lots of small description.xml-files, each in their own subdirectory (see below), and each defining only a single menu-entry. So actually, the examples I gave are full examples of description.xml-files. They just don't get any larger than that. I'm not quite sure, how to explain this concept. Maybe you could have a look at the actions.zip-file in CVS. But maybe things get clearer below. Note of course, that all this is up for discussion.}  

-{TF: The second example is correct. An each of these subdirectories would have a description.xml-file. For 

-The directory-structure would be explicitely created by the ActionAuthor (that is until some time in the future, we have a super-cool graphical action-editor...). For now all actions have to be placed in the same directory-__structure__ (but __not__ in the same directory). That directory structure may be rooted anywhere you like, however (that is already configurable in current CVS). Note, that my idea would be prospectively, that you may duplicate the branches of interest of this directory structure in your home-directory and place additional actions there. Those would then be integrated with the "default"/distributed action-hierarchy. The advantage would be, that you don't need write access to the common directory-tree.}  

-{DP: So what is the relationship between "some.file", and the file given in the <action filename=""/> tag? Is "some.file" the *.action file or the *.tpt file?}  

-{TF: some.file is the *.tpt-file. Note that the <code>-tag is optional. By default code.tpt will be used. Actually, my reason for introducting the <code>-tag is, that I plan to make it ""possible"" to inline the code in the .action-file. (Something like 

-). Further, the reason the code-filename is not given in description.xml, but rather in the .action-file, is that I'm trying to reduce memory-usage of actions to a minimum. While not activated (i.e. shown), an action is basically just a single string storing the filename of the .action-file. Only once the action is chosen from the menu, all the further information is parsed and the GUI is created. As soon as you close the dialog, everything except for the string storing the filename is freed again.}  

-{DP: an earlier data.frame selector will need to be created. I've written code that allows up to query the .R file associated with a particular project for objects of a give type (e.g., it provides a list of only data.frames).}  

-{TF: You're right of course. My idea on how to do that, would be to continue using the <varselector>-tag, but to introduce an additional "filter"-tag like e.g.: 

-That varselector would then only show data.frames. It should also be possible to say, excluded "string"-variables from the varselector, or even to exclude variables, that are not marked as at least ordinal scale level. I'm not entirely sure, how the syntax should be for that, yet.}