Ticket #138 (closed task: fixed)
Opened 2007-05-23T16:43:03-05:00
Last modified 2009-03-11T16:52:39-05:00
Document details of supported formats
| Reported by: | melissa | Owned by: | melissa |
|---|---|---|---|
| Priority: | minor | Milestone: | |
| Component: | bio-formats | Severity: | non-issue |
| Keywords: | Cc: | ||
| Blocked By: | Blocking: |
Description
It might be a good idea to document various things about each file format, outside of the reader itself. For instance, we could keep track of:
- who is responsible for maintaining this format
- which versions of this format are supported by Bio-Formats
- applications that can read/write this format
- basic structure of the format (if reverse engineered), or link to the specification
- known deficiencies and possible enhancements
- whether or not more sample data is needed
The primary motivation for this is to aid external developers in improving existing formats.
Change History
comment:1 Changed 2007-07-09T10:15:24-05:00 by curtis
comment:2 Changed 2007-11-16T11:14:47-06:00 by curtis
- Severity set to fatal
This is very related to ticket #208, though this ticket covers more developer-level information. Personally, I think we should have all succinct information and links in the web site pop-up info boxes, and any more verbose information such as implementation notes in the source code itself as comments. In rare cases (large amounts of notes), we can include HTML files in source:trunk/loci/formats/doc.
comment:5 Changed 2008-03-28T13:32:45-05:00 by melissa
- Status changed from new to closed
- Resolution set to fixed
comment:6 Changed 2009-03-11T16:52:39-05:00 by curtis
- Milestone bio-formats-m1 deleted
Milestone bio-formats-m1 deleted
The Bio-Formats web site now has a pop-up info box that reports some of this information: who maintains/owns the format, links to specifications, and which kinds of additional sample data we would like, if any.
I am all for making this info box as detailed as possible, including most of the above types of information. In particular, it would be easy to note which versions of a format Bio-Formats supports, include links to other applications that support the format, known deficiencies and possible enhancements. The only thing for which there probably isn't room is the basic structure of the format -- I think we can let the (well-commented) reader implementation speak for itself there (see LegacyZVIReader for an example).