AutoHotkey Community

This is the StdLib RFC (request for comments) / RFI (request for information) thread.

- reserved for index -

LastUpdate: 2010-02-02 @ 0100

_________________

All scripts, unless otherwise noted, are hereby released under CC-BY

Hi all,

i like the idea of having a plce where stdLib compatible files or source can be indexed in one place and therefor found by some kind of stdLib index reader which might be capable of downloading, updating and/or redirecting to its home/discussion threads and much more.

to achieve something like this, an index of standard library compatible files is need to be build. if you like the idea, too or are a developer of stdLib compatible software, just post here in this thread.

it would be a good idea to post the following information:

The mandatory fields are marked bold:
the name of the stdLib script
the name of the author(s)
the version of the stdLib script - if no version info available use the latest update date as identification attribute
link to home/discussion thread
the licence (if none available, it will be assumed to be LGPL compatible)
the source location
contributors (comma seperated)
dependencies (eg other stdLib components)

to ease the process of collection the information, quote the 3rd post of this thread and use it as a template

I will keep track of this thread and update an index section maintained here in the forst post.

_________________

All scripts, unless otherwise noted, are hereby released under CC-BY

StdLib Source Proposal

StdLib Name
<Enter the name of the StdLib here here>
StdLib Author(s)
<Enter the Author(s), seperate multiple by comma; 1st is project lead>
StdLib Version
<Version of the script, if not available, enter the last update date>
StdLib Licence
<If no information is available, it will be assumed to be LGPL licence>
StdLib Source Location
<http://link.to/thread or http://link.to/source>
StdLib Dependencies
<Enter dependencies of the StdLib, eg name the StdLibs>
StdLib Comments
<If the lib is a RC or beta, here is the proper place for it>
StdLib Contributors
<Name Credits, Contributors, Inspirations whatever here>

[yournamehere ]

Packagers can be different than the maintainers of an ahk library module.
Maybe this information can be added to the wiki which already has a. Catalog of scripts

the problem with wiki is that people are not restricted to use a defined set of vars such as here in post #3

so any script downloading information from wiki might get interrupted by parsing the available data also most ppl wont register a 2nd/3rd time for a wiki account

it is not about providing script for redistribution, but an index for all available libs so that ppl who often install developer stations, may use this as a help (also for n00bs who might benefit of lists released by prom members)

dR

_________________

All scripts, unless otherwise noted, are hereby released under CC-BY

I would also consider adding Keywords or Tags field as mandatory.

You didn't mention how the data is distributed. I would prefer it to stay with the source code.

_________________

See also this thread, where Chris also has some remarks http://www.autohotkey.com/forum/viewtop ... 847#144847

_________________
AHK FAQ
TF : Text files & strings lib, TF Forum

i dont see a problem with that, since neither a stdLib script nor its documentation is going to be redistributed at all, but only a list from a server is going to be downloaded which contains further informations, so any interested user will start the script, grab the latest stdLib channel news and choose which scripts to download

what i'd love to see in such a construct, is a set of marked (installed) stdLib files, recommended by community members, so that a noob picks a list and gets a set of stdLib files to download based on that recommendation. also AHK distris may include such a recommended set, but this is up to chris.

also a benefit of such an indexing service is that people who tend to develop a stdLib compliant set of functions, see which names are already in use and therefore it wont come to any conflicts on this issue (or at least to less conflicts)

@majkinetor: do you have an idea or a wishlist for tagnames or for categories? i can imagine of

• strings
• gui
• math
• windows (for com and such)
• graphic
• IO
• memory
• resources
• other

at the moment this is open to discussion, i'd prefer a human readable format but i think xml is too bloatet. probly yaml? actually just a tiny subset of yaml. a good primer to yaml can be found here:
http://components.symfony-project.org/yaml/trunk/book/02-YAML

the idea was to have the data to be put out as plain text and still being easy to read and to parse.

so a set of data might look like this:



since not all names for the stdLib contain any meaning information (tf.ahk) it might be a good idea to add a abstract description to it such as

greets
dR

_________________

All scripts, unless otherwise noted, are hereby released under CC-BY

I had started in the past a project which was similiar to this in some aspects. There was some problems with the XSLT and so I did not completed the work. If you can remember in German forum, you posted there also. May be this is helpful and related in some way:

• AutoHotkey Script Collection (XML+DTD+XSLT=HTML+CSS+JS)

_________________
{1:"ahkstdlib", 2:"my libs", 3:"my apps", 4:"my license"}
--> Don't feed the troll! <--

Shouldn't it be something like this so you know the filename, name would take care of the description, you could add abstract: for longer descriptions if you want.

I would prefer human readable text over XML, the easier to maintain the better. Not sure where to maintain the info, for zipped libraries like the COM it would mean you would have to unzip it first before you could read the data, if you keep it in a separate file one may forget to update it.

_________________
AHK FAQ
TF : Text files & strings lib, TF Forum

Perhaps also include:
- AutoHotkey version (regular, AHKL/U, ironahk + version number)
- Compatibility notes (in case new version of lib isn't backwards compatible so if a user updates a library via this index reader they are warned)

_________________
AHK FAQ
TF : Text files & strings lib, TF Forum

This is an answer post to this:
http://www.autohotkey.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=333999


No this is an indipendent work. The redistribution is a package of predownloaded libraries. You can see it as a snapshot state. The database of meta information about the libraries is in ini format. The entry 0 defines which keys a section CAN contain. Later an editor will be made, which will be created at loadtime based on this section 0:

The first entry for a library looks like this:

The distribution comes with a read only Gui of the database. It provides simple install and deinstall and shows the information from the ini. In next days I will upload it. Most problemic part to me is the fact that some people do not specify a license for the library.

_________________
{1:"ahkstdlib", 2:"my libs", 3:"my apps", 4:"my license"}
--> Don't feed the troll! <--

OK I understand what you mean now.

Personally I prefer people to download TF via the forum rather than a zipped file from elsewhere so I have control over what version circulates - it also prevents "I just downloaded the latest version and function X doesn't work" type of messages (say I fix a bug today, and you don't update your collection for a while, people keep on downloading the version with the bug?) [edit: ... package of predownloaded libraries ... -> if one can download individual libraries it prevents the outdated part, it also saves you the trouble of maintaining it, you just maintain the index to it AND it keeps you out of trouble with regards to the various licenses as you only offer a link to download not the file itself]

In general I hope it will be something that can be maintained by the ahk community rather than one individual ahk-er (no offense) because if you decide to start programming in C++ you no longer want to maintain it, even if your scripts are available for everyone to modify. It is of little use if there are multiple versions floating around.

I think it is worth looking into how other languages do it, for example perl with http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CPAN lua http://luarocks.org/repositories/rocks/ etc

If each lib author could maintain a small text file on his own site or forumpost? perhaps a browse libraries like luarocks can be developed and hosted on lib.autohotkey.com or lib.autohotkey.net. A lib author submits his lib for inclusion in the index, once accepted it will be updated automatically every 24 hours or so.

Besides the website there is a AHK script to manage, download and install libraries keeping backup copies of older versions in case of compatibility issues etc...

If the website above has a RSS feed of updates you could simply monitor it via your favourite RSS readers or email program and start the stdlib manager if you see something that interests you. The website also maintains a master index of available libs which is downloaded by the stdlib manager.

OK, enough for now

_________________
AHK FAQ
TF : Text files & strings lib, TF Forum

If we would manage to do something like you described... That is the optimal state, but dont dream. And yes, I know what you are try to explain with outdated versions and so on. And such an important topic should not made by one person alone.
But some discussion floating around about how and which library should be offered to download, and how the manager should look. These discussions exist not since the stdlib mechanism, they are older ideas. And that is what I mean. Just ideas. No one do it to show how it COULD look like. This what I try todo is a starting point and not the one and only way.

The advantage with an offline zip file is, no internet connection is needed. It could have an "update the repository" function, which downloads all the sources. Currently, there is no standardized meta data any developer provides. How to update the revision number? Some scripts are provided as an inline text only.

The database I collect does contain links to their home and shows the source in the gui and let execute dynamically created examples without to have the library in the stdlib folder.

_________________
{1:"ahkstdlib", 2:"my libs", 3:"my apps", 4:"my license"}
--> Don't feed the troll! <--

I see proof of concept to speed up the process

_________________
AHK FAQ
TF : Text files & strings lib, TF Forum