Why Rev needs a cookbook (newb questions)

[Devin Asay]

On May 9, 2009, at 12:59 AM, Peter Alcibiades wrote:

> I said this before, but its why Rev needs a cookbook on the lines of  
> Carla
> Schroder's great  "Linux Cookbook"
>
> Steven Cox's queries illustrate the problem very clearly. Imagine a  
> kitchen
> with lots of pots and pans and ingredients in it.  It comes with a 400
> page guide detailing the function of every one.
>
> We now have an intelligent Martian who has just been employed as a  
> cook.
> His first assignment is spaghetti carbonara, or cassoulet.  Where  
> does he
> start?
>
> What he has is a superb kitchen manual.  What he wants is a  
> cookbook, with
> a systematic set of entries like this (from the Rev for C programmers
> page):
>
> "To filter a handler so that it only responds to certain objects,  
> rather
> than every object below it in the hierarchy, use the target function  
> to
> determine which object originally received the message being handled.
>
> "To create a code library, place the handlers you want to re-use in  
> any
> object that’s available in your a stack, then use the insert script
> command to add that object to the hierarchy."
>
> So what Steven is looking for is a cookbook with entries like "to  
> empty a
> field......"    "to check for a variable.....".  "to make elements  
> in a
> list field clickable...."  "to change the mouse to a hand while
> hovering..."

Hi Peter,

We've had discussions like this on the list before, and a lot of the  
answers are something like: "It's there, you just need to know where  
to find it." That is still true today, although Rev 3.0 and 3.5 have  
gone a long way in making that material easier to find. Here's a short  
list I recommend:

For Rev 3.x

Resource Center > Sample Scripts
	This is in effect what you're talking about, isn't it? As I  
understand it, it's a reworking of Jeanne DeVoto's original "cookbook"  
examples that came with Rev 1.x through 2.5(?)

Help > Revolution Search Engine > Web Database
	This overlooked and under-appreciated tool by the late, great Eric  
Chatonet lets you search a whole list of great 3rd party Revolution  
sites.
	For instance, on my web site I have a page with simple examples at
	http://revolution.byu.edu/transcript/LectureExamples.php
	All of the other sites have many very good ones as well.
	
V. 3.5 gives us a much richer collection of tools for sharing from the  
developer community.
	-We now have User Contributed Notes in the Dictionary. Anyone with a  
Rev Online account can submit example scripts and tips.

Rev Online. As of 3.5 we can submit code snippets. While the new ROL  
is not perfect yet, I think it's a big improvement. It's got a growing  
collection of great stacks to look at.

Especially with the latter two tools, we as a developer community can  
go a long way toward filling the void of simple, instructive examples  
for folks new to Rev.

Regards,

Devin

Devin Asay
Humanities Technology and Research Support Center
Brigham Young University