General Modularity Example Module Projects & Files Commands & Scripting Windows Menus Charts Tables Buttons & tools Trees and Taxa Characters & Models Documentation General Utilities Modular architecture Modules: subclasses of MesquiteModule Modules employing other modules Duty Classes Writing modules Documentation for particular modules Packages of Modules Also: User's introduction to modularity class MesquiteModule Example Module

Documentation about modules

(April 2000)

Particular modules may have their own manuals, and in addition the Mesquite system composes documentation automatically by harvesting information from the modules and composing web pages. With a few exceptions, this documentation is not linked from these web pages, but rather from places in Mesquite while it is running.

• Manuals for modules — the standard location for a web page for a module is within the module's directory, as the file "manual.html". A file so named and placed can be found by the Mesquite system, and will be linked from:
  • the page summarizing installed modules (available by selecting Modules Installed in Help menu of Mesquite)
  • the green buttons labeled "manual" in the views of employee trees for currently running modules (available by selecting Active Modules in the Help menu of Mesquite or by touching on the Tree of Modules button of the window information bar.
  • the Show Menu button of the window information bar
• Manuals for packages of modules — Sets of modules may be distributed as a package, and the suggested way for a package to announce itself and present its documentation is by including a banner in the startup window of Mesquite and a web page introducing the package. The banner will appear for a module if an image file named "splash.gif" is included in the module's directory. If you touch on the banner in the startup window, Mesquite will take you to the web page "splash.html" within the module's directory if such a file exists.
• Module information pages — Mesquite automatically composes a web page for each module, summarizing its version, authors, and the scripting commands the module accepts and possibly its menu items. It composes these pages the first time you choose one of the menu items that takes you to a web page, for instance Menu & Control Explanations from the Windows menu, or the Modules Installed or Scripting Commands menu items in the Help menu. These module information pages will be linked from:
  • the page summarizing installed modules (available by selecting Modules Installed in Help menu of Mesquite)
  • the buttons showing the names of modules, in the views of employee trees for currently running modules (available by selecting Active Modules in the Help menu of Mesquite or by touching on the Tree of Modules button of the window information bar).

The documentation listed above gives information about the classes of modules, but not about a particular instantiation of a module. There are sources of information about a current instantiation of a module:

• Status dialog of instantiated module — Show Status of Module button in the window information bar.
• Information panels in windows — parameters, citations
• Employer trees of modules. Get by: Active Modules in Help menu/ Tree of modules panel in window. This brings up a diagram of the current instantiations of modules, which form a tree of employees. With it you can see what modules are employees of what other modules.

[UNDER CONSTRUCTION]