On Mar 27, 2009, at 5:25 AM, taverna-users- 
[email protected] wrote:

> It is certainly possible to launch an external editor e.g. Eclipse
> does it - sometimes when I don't want it to :-) Parts of Taverna, such
> as the command line local worker, already run external programs.  It
> sounds do-able.
>
> There are at least two types of service that allow script editing - R
> and the beanshell.  Whatever is done for one should probably be done
> for the other(s) as well.

Agreed. Consistency in the application behavior for script editing is  
definitely desirable. 1.71 is not consistent in this respect, at least  
on the Mac.

> Would users generally prefer an external editor or to use a built-in
> one?

Everyone else will have to weigh in on that one.

 From a usability perspective, a basic built-in editor with the option  
to set a preference to launch an external text editor (or trigger it  
manually, perhaps?) would meet the broadest set of needs. I can  
imagine reasons that people might want either, or the option of  
switching based on task. Of course, that's more complicated to  
implement and maintain.

I would generally be happy with launching an external text editor  
myself. It might occasionally seem like a nuisance when I only need to  
change one character in a script, but would definitely be an  
acceptable tradeoff for the way I use Taverna.

> Using an external editor would be less work, long term, for Taverna
> people to support.

Indeed - it might generally be a more reliable solution as well, since  
there's a basic text editor built into every operating system I've  
ever encountered. I'm thinking in particular of managing dependencies  
because I repeatedly run into problems with that for R; a single  
package update causes headaches every so often.

Thanks!

Andrea


Andrea Wiggins
PhD Student, School of Information Studies
Syracuse University

337 Hinds Hall
Syracuse, NY 13244
[email protected]
www.andreawiggins.com


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