ProvidePluginDocs - Revision history

JenniferVendetti at 00:02, February 24, 2008

2008-02-24T00:02:06Z

JenniferVendetti at 00:01, February 24, 2008

2008-02-24T00:01:18Z

JenniferVendetti: new page content

2008-02-23T23:59:36Z

new page content

New page

<span style="font-weight:bold; font-size:18px;">How to make your plug-in's documentation available to users from within Protege</span>

In Protege versions 2.1 and higher, we added the ability for plug-in authors to provide "About Box" and documentation information for users via Protege's Help menu. We highly recommend (but do not require) plug-in authors to take advantage of this functionality. Instructions for doing so are provided throughout this article.

To follow is a screen shot of the "About Plugins" dialog, launched by clicking the Help -> About Plugins... menu item. The list of plug-ins in the "Installed Plugins" pane are those plug-ins that specify About Box information. The "about" information is provided by plug-in authors in the form of an HTML file.

[[image:About_Plugins_Dialog.jpg|none]]

Note that "about" information is displayed within a frame in Protege, but if you provide any clickable links on this page, they will launch in the user's default browser.

If a plug-in author specifies documentation information for a plug-in, the name of the plug-in will appear when users click the Help -> Plugins menu item. When a user clicks on a particular plug-in name in the menu, documentation for the plug-in will launch in the user's default browser. As with "about" information, documentation must be provided in HTML format. If your documentation is not written in HTML, a possible option is to provide a simple HTML page, which has additional instructions for accessing your plug-in's documentation.

[[image:Help_Plugins_Menu_Item.jpg|frame|none]]

Plug-in authors must specify the location of About Box and documentation HTML files in the <code>plugin.properties</code> file. The <code>plugin.properties</code> file is a is a text file in which plug-in authors can:

* declare dependencies on other plug-ins
* specify "About Box" information
* specify the location of documentation

This file resides in the root directory for your plug-in. This Wiki article only describes the syntax for specifying the location of About Box and documentation information. If you also need to declare a plug-in as dependent on other plug-ins, please see the Wiki article entitled "[[PluginDependencies|Instructions for declaring dependencies between Protege plug-ins]]".

Below is an example of the proper syntax for specifying the location of a plug-in's documentation. This snippet was taken from the DataMaster Tab's <code>plugin.properties</code> file.

<pre>
plugin.component.count=1
plugin.component.name.0=DataMaster Tab
plugin.component.about.0=about-datamaster.html
plugin.component.doc.0=about-datamaster.html
...
</pre>

These few lines indicate that both About Box and documentation are provided in the root directory for the DataMaster plug-in. To take a closer look at this example, open the <code><protege-install-dir>/plugins/edu.stanford.smi.protegex.datamaster</code> directory (if you happen to have Protege installed).

Here is another snippet from the <code>plugin.properties</code> file for the PAL Tabs plug-in:

<pre>
plugin.component.count=1
plugin.component.name.0=PAL Tabs
plugin.component.about.0=about_pal_tabs.html
plugin.component.doc.0=http://protege.stanford.edu/plugins/paltabs/pal-documentation/index.htm
</pre>

A final example demonstrates the syntax for the situation where multiple plug-ins reside in the same directory. This is the <code>plugin.properties</code> file for the Standard Extensions plug-in. Note that this plug-in only provides documentation information, but not "about" information.

<pre>
plugin.component.count=2
plugin.component.name.0=Graph Widget
plugin.component.doc.0=http://protege.stanford.edu/doc/tutorial/graph_widget
plugin.component.name.1=Table Widget
plugin.component.doc.1=http://protege.stanford.edu/doc/tutorial/tables
</pre>

Many existing Protege plug-ins have provided About Box and documentation information. To see examples of these simple HTML files, browse to your Protege installation and examine the contents of the <code>plugin</code> subdirectory. These sorts of HTML files should not be difficult to create or maintain, which is why (as mentioned above) we encourage plug-in authors to provide them. It can be a much better experience for an end user of your plug-in if he/she is able to launch help documentation directly from Protege's user interface.

← Older revision		Revision as of 00:02, February 24, 2008
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−	Many existing Protege plug-ins have provided About Box and documentation information. To see examples of these simple HTML files, browse to your Protege installation and examine the contents of the <code>~~plugin~~</code> subdirectory. These sorts of HTML files should not be difficult to create or maintain, which is why (as mentioned above) we encourage plug-in authors to provide them. It can be a much better experience for an end user of your plug-in if he/she is able to launch help documentation directly from Protege's user interface.	+	Many existing Protege plug-ins have provided About Box and documentation information. To see examples of these simple HTML files, browse to your Protege installation and examine the contents of the <code>plugins</code> subdirectory. These sorts of HTML files should not be difficult to create or maintain, which is why (as mentioned above) we encourage plug-in authors to provide them. It can be a much better experience for an end user of your plug-in if he/she is able to launch help documentation directly from Protege's user interface.


	'''See Also: [[PluginDependencies\|Instructions for declaring dependencies between Protege plug-ins]]'''		'''See Also: [[PluginDependencies\|Instructions for declaring dependencies between Protege plug-ins]]'''

← Older revision		Revision as of 00:01, February 24, 2008
Line 70:		Line 70:

	Many existing Protege plug-ins have provided About Box and documentation information. To see examples of these simple HTML files, browse to your Protege installation and examine the contents of the <code>plugin</code> subdirectory. These sorts of HTML files should not be difficult to create or maintain, which is why (as mentioned above) we encourage plug-in authors to provide them. It can be a much better experience for an end user of your plug-in if he/she is able to launch help documentation directly from Protege's user interface.		Many existing Protege plug-ins have provided About Box and documentation information. To see examples of these simple HTML files, browse to your Protege installation and examine the contents of the <code>plugin</code> subdirectory. These sorts of HTML files should not be difficult to create or maintain, which is why (as mentioned above) we encourage plug-in authors to provide them. It can be a much better experience for an end user of your plug-in if he/she is able to launch help documentation directly from Protege's user interface.
		+
		+
		+	'''See Also: [[PluginDependencies\|Instructions for declaring dependencies between Protege plug-ins]]'''