Hi Doru,

I really like the advancements in this direction. If fact what I have trying to do, as a newbie, by making a Glamorous Toolkit powered outliner/tree like interface for writing structured documents tries something similar. I think that writing is mainly a non-linear experience and the usual metaphors of document processors are not powerful enough in expressing/exploring the structure of ideas in the writing process (some thought about it ane examples about how implement non-linear academic writing are in [1], in Spanish).

[1] http://mutabit.com/offray/static/blog/output/posts/la-forma-en-que-escribo-para-el-doctorado.html

I would like to create Visual Data Narratives inside Pharo/Moose/Roassal that use file system and web, and LateX as "exportation formats", but where the writing/structuring experience happen mainly inside Pharo. For that persistence/change of trees is important, but as I have documented in other threads, I'm having problems with it, using Glamorous Toolkit (specifically on updating objects from text panes and from emergent windows for tree names/properties).

With your post, I'm wondering who difficult is:

a. To put support to Pillar/Markdown inside text panes (something similar to the "smalltalkCode" message for showing Smalltalk in text panes but with "pillarCode" or "markdownCode" (or some dictionary with the #syntax keyword and the language as a value).

b. To execute some parts of the code, for example the ones that are inside "[[[" "]]]" while the cursor is there, so we could not only preview imagages, but also execute code for visualizations or other computations

c. The ability to support drag and drop to files to the tree (a Glamorous Tree) and get some kind of node pointing to that file.

d. Tha ability to preview thumbnail images in a similar way of the "contextual places" for printing described on your post at [2]

[2] http://www.humane-assessment.com/blog/rethinking-print-it-in-pharo

e. The hability to show a preview of the pdf/html in an emergent lateral panel in a simlar way to what TeXStudio or TeXmaker do[3]

[3] http://www.xm1math.net/texmaker/texmakertop_big.png

So here I put my other ideas about "bringing liveliness to documentation" as you said and I would like to build them together.

Cheers,

Offray

Ps: In the other threads I'm asking about how to advance in the outliner metaphor for live doc writing on Pharo/Moose/Roassal. I'll keep you posted.

On 09/07/2014 08:41 AM, Tudor Girba wrote:

Hi,

Documentation is important. To make it more likely and more enjoyable for people
to write more of it, I teamed up with Andrei and Jan to build up support for
Pillar in the GTInspector.

The current solution brings the following:
- Pillar specific syntax highlighting including Shout highlighting for code snippets
- Embedded files validation and preview possibility
- Quick browsing of Pillar book projects when inspecting the book folder
- Class comment rendering using Pillar syntax when inspecting the class object
- Text editor support for custom highlighting in Glamour (using Rubric for now)
- Island parsing for quick specification of incomplete parser

You can learn more about it here:
http://www.humane-assessment.com/blog/writing-pillar-books-with-the-gtinspector

Inline image 1

There is much more to do in this direction, and I would be happy to inspire some
of you to join forces. Please let us know what you think.

Cheers,
Doru

--
www.tudorgirba.com <http://www.tudorgirba.com>

"Every thing has its own flow"