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

(updated August 2005)

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 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. This splash web can serve as an entry for a manual.
• 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:

• Information Bar of Window — The tabs at the tops of many windows take you to information about the current contents of the window (Text), the parameters of the running modules, a summary of the running modules involved in the window, and citations for the modules..

[UNDER CONSTRUCTION]