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    <div class="moz-cite-prefix">Hi Eric,<br>
      <br>
      Yes, I will do it when ready!<br>
      <br>
      Jan<br>
      <br>
      On 07/25/2014 07:50 PM, Eric Pettersen wrote:<br>
    </div>
    <blockquote
      cite="mid:C8BC0CA0-72D1-4C86-9A7F-2E5736BBFF90@cgl.ucsf.edu"
      type="cite">
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      Hi Jan,
      <div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>If
        the extension is of somewhat general interest, you could
        announce it on chimera-users and we could put a news item on the
        Chimera home page about it.</div>
      <div><br>
      </div>
      <div>--Eric</div>
      <div><br>
        <div>
          <div>On Jul 25, 2014, at 10:33 AM, Jan Kosinski <<a
              moz-do-not-send="true" href="mailto:kosinski@embl.de">kosinski@embl.de</a>>
            wrote:</div>
          <br class="Apple-interchange-newline">
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              <div class="moz-cite-prefix">Dear Elaine and Eric,<br>
                <br>
                Thanks a lot! I will probably get an example html page
                as Elaine suggests, edit it and then use Eric's option
                3) to bundle the help with the extension!<br>
                <br>
                Jan<br>
                <br>
                <br>
                On 07/25/2014 07:29 PM, Eric Pettersen wrote:<br>
              </div>
              <blockquote
                cite="mid:158D2B1B-5A3C-49B1-B97D-C666DED8E100@cgl.ucsf.edu"
                type="cite">
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                Hi Jan,
                <div><span class="Apple-tab-span"
                    style="white-space:pre"> </span>You probably also
                  want to know how to get your extension to display the
                  help you write.  Unfortunately the "Help" example in
                  the Programmer's Guide hasn't been written.  Here's
                  what you need to know:</div>
                <div><span class="Apple-tab-span"
                    style="white-space:pre"> </span>To enable the Help
                  button on a dialog (assuming you are using standard
                  Chimera dialogs from chimera.baseDialog [<i>i.e.</i> ModelessDialog

                  or ModalDialog], you set a class variable named "help"
                  to some value (analogous to the class variable
                  "buttons" for specifying what buttons to show).  The
                  possible values are:</div>
                <div><br>
                </div>
                <div><span class="Apple-tab-span"
                    style="white-space:pre"> </span>1)  A path.  This
                  is used for extensions whose documentation is bundled
                  with Chimera and therefore probably isn't relevant to
                  you.</div>
                <div><span class="Apple-tab-span"
                    style="white-space:pre"> </span>2)  An URL (<i>e.g.</i> "<a
                    moz-do-not-send="true"
                    href="http://myhost.myschool.edu/mylab/me/tool/help.html">http://myhost.myschool.edu/mylab/me/tool/help.html</a>").

                   Chimera will show that URL in a browser when the Help
                  button is clicked.</div>
                <div><span class="Apple-tab-span"
                    style="white-space:pre"> </span>3)  A 2-tuple
                  consisting of a path and a module.  The module can
                  either be your actual extension module object or a
                  string that can be combined with "import" to import
                  your extension.  Your extension should have a
                  "helpdir" folder in it, and the path will be
                  interpreted relative to that folder.  So as an
                  example, ("help.html", "myext") will use "import
                  myext" to import your extension, determine where that
                  is on the file system (using the module's __path__
                  variable) and then look in its "helpdir" folder to
                  find help.html and show that in a browser.</div>
                <div><br>
                </div>
                <div><span class="Apple-tab-span"
                    style="white-space:pre"> </span>Let me know if you
                  need more info.</div>
                <div><br>
                </div>
                <div>--Eric</div>
                <div><br>
                </div>
                <div>
                  <div>
                    <div>                        Eric Pettersen<br>
                                              UCSF Computer Graphics Lab<br>
                                              <a moz-do-not-send="true"
                        href="http://www.cgl.ucsf.edu/">http://www.cgl.ucsf.edu</a><br>
                      <br>
                    </div>
                    <div>On Jul 25, 2014, at 10:00 AM, Elaine Meng <<a
                        moz-do-not-send="true"
                        href="mailto:meng@cgl.ucsf.edu">meng@cgl.ucsf.edu</a>>

                      wrote:</div>
                    <br class="Apple-interchange-newline">
                    <blockquote type="cite">Hi Jan,<br>
                      We do strive for a reasonable amount of
                      consistency in the documentation that we ship, but
                      there is no official guideline at this point.  We
                      only have something like that for the extension’s
                      GUI text:<br>
                      <<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.rbvi.ucsf.edu/chimera/docs/ProgrammersGuide/frameguidelines.html">http://www.rbvi.ucsf.edu/chimera/docs/ProgrammersGuide/frameguidelines.html</a>><br>
                      <br>
                      One reason is that the tools themselves vary
                      considerably in complexity and organization,
                      calling for variations on the basic documentation
                      format.<br>
                      <br>
                      My advice would be to start with the HTML manpage
                      from the most similar existing tool (click Help
                      button, use browser to save HTML, then modify, at
                      least if you are comfortable directly text-editing
                      HTML).  If you are not comfortable working with
                      HTML directly there are probably other  routes to
                      ultimately generating HTML with a similar
                      organization and style. <br>
                      <br>
                      We don’t mandate anything specific, however, and
                      the mere fact that you are actually thinking about
                      documentation is a positive!  Of the various
                      extensions distributed by others, some have little
                      documentation, some are documented on websites,
                      and some have non-HTML documentation (PDF, etc.).
                       My general impression is that most don’t include
                      documentation in their download.<br>
                      <<a moz-do-not-send="true"
                        href="http://www.rbvi.ucsf.edu/chimera/plugins/plugins.html">http://www.rbvi.ucsf.edu/chimera/plugins/plugins.html</a>><br>
                      <br>
                      Thanks for asking!<br>
                      Elaine<br>
                      -----<br>
                      Elaine C. Meng, Ph.D.                       <br>
                      UCSF Computer Graphics Lab (Chimera team) and
                      Babbitt Lab<br>
                      Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry<br>
                      University of California, San Francisco<br>
                      <br>
                      On Jul 25, 2014, at 6:16 AM, Jan Kosinski <<a
                        moz-do-not-send="true"
                        href="mailto:kosinski@embl.de">kosinski@embl.de</a>>

                      wrote:<br>
                      <br>
                      <blockquote type="cite">Hi,<br>
                        I wrote a custom extension and now I want to
                        create a documentation page that upon clicking a
                        Help button opens a web page similarly to some
                        other Chimera tools.<br>
                        Is there any html template, style guide or any
                        important instructions I should follow for
                        implementing it?<br>
                        Thanks in advance,<br>
                        Jan<br>
                      </blockquote>
                      <br>
                      <br>
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                      <br>
                    </blockquote>
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              <br>
              <br>
              <pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">-- 
Jan Kosinski, PhD
Structural and Computational Biology Unit
European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL)
Meyerhofstrasse 1
69117 Heidelberg
Germany</pre>
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          </blockquote>
        </div>
        <br>
      </div>
    </blockquote>
    <br>
    <br>
    <pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">-- 
Jan Kosinski, PhD
Structural and Computational Biology Unit
European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL)
Meyerhofstrasse 1
69117 Heidelberg
Germany</pre>
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