Development_idea_dynamic_help

Project Development Idea: Dynamic Inline Help

• This idea is to add dynamically-generated pages to the inline help tool. This would include lists of parts, resources, manufacturing processes, buildings, etc. The lists would include hyperlinked names of subjects that would link to pages with information on the subject. For example, there would be a page with a list of all resources in the simulation. The user could click on a resource name and this would link to a page about the resource, with links to all manufacturing processes that use or produce that resource. These lists would be dynamically generated from information provided by the running simulation, which will have been read from the config files when then simulation started. So if a new resource is added to the resources.xml config file and a new simulation is started, the resource should show up in the inline help resource list.

==> there are now generated help pages for vehicles, resources, parts and manufacturing processes, functioning basicly as proposed above, but still in a very rudimentary form.

• The hope is that this will be a useful tool for the user so that he doesn't have to look through all the XML config files to find information about resources, parts, manufacturing processes, buildings, etc.

==> indeed, quite usefull when playing the simulation, since most users wont have the time or skills to look under the hood so to say.

• We may need to add description elements to the items in the XML configuration files to provide informative descriptions on these pages.

==> this is underway but incomplete. the description elements in the config files should soon be replaced by some sort of pointer to translatable resources containing description text, artwork, diagrams, formulae, etc.

Mailing list discussion thread on this issue.

Feel free to add more ideas to this page or add to its discussion.

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