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5. www.OpenMI.org and wiki.OpenMI.org
A proposal to the OAEC is ready in a draft version: see
5.
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We have already put enormous efforts into documenting the OpenMI standard and the SDK. By the end of the HarmonIt project we wrote hundreds of page in the formal documentation (the Book A -F stuff), and more recently we have worked especially on the wiki to improve the documentation in order to facilitate people new to OpenMI (the HowTo pages). So even though we are well above the typical documentation level for research projects, we still need to improve. I think that improving documentation and guidelines will be the area where we achieve most effect in order to get OpenMI used around the world. Naturally we still need to develop new features, but should not sacrifice documentation. I believe that the getting started pages on the wiki is currently be best entry for new people and I will typically direct such people to these pages. I would appreciate if we could spend a little time going through the getting started pages and assign task for improvements. Specifically, I have noticed that after the upgrade of the wiki sofware some pages have been corrupted.
David Maidment recently wrote in a mail to Roger. "I think the OpenMI conceptual model is presently contained in Appendix G or somewhere else near the end of your large manual. I wonder if this model could be restated in a separate document so that reviewers of it don't have to extract the key points out of a huge software engineering manual. I am thinking of something that could be read and understood by your hydrologic science colleagues at CHE, the scientists in our ChyMP group, etc.". Most likely he did not know about the wiki, which make me think if the wiki exposed sufficiently on the official openmi web,
(Jan)
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5.2 Could we simply use a wiki for the official OpenMI web site
Currently the official OpenMI is exposed on three different web sites www.OpenMI.org, wiki.OpenMI.org and http://sourceforge.net/projects/openmi. There are naturally good reasons for running these three web sites. www.OpenMI.org is the very official nicely formatted quality assured stuff, whereas the wiki is more quick and dirty, and finally sourceforge provides tools for version control, task and bug trackers, and help forum. It is my impression that people, in their search for information about OpenMI may get confused, also I sometimes have doubts about how much funding we will have when the Life project ends, hence we need to go for agile solutions. I discussed these issues with Michiel Blind some month ago and we agreed it should be investigated if we simply could use a wiki for the official web site. There are examples of very nicely formatted wikis around (see e.g.). In my opinion largest advantage of switching to a wiki, it the ability for a large group to easily edit the text on the wiki - so we get the nice stuff out there quickly. So, what is the OATC opinion about this? Can we recommend specific wiki software? Would it be possible to spend some time setting something up, that will demonstrate how is could look? Jan Gregersen
A proposal to the OAEC is ready in a draft version: see OpenMI Association website proposal_MB.doc
Minutes: ToDo Minutes:
It was agreed that a Wiki would be the best solution. On a longer term we may want to use a real content management system, which makes nice formatting possible, but for now the contents of the pages are considered more important that the appearance. Adrian will investigate if WSL can provide a server to host the WIKI and Stef will investigate if Deltares can host. We agree that our current wiki for OATC (Confluence) is the best choice. Jan will make sure that this issue is on the agenda for the next AOEC meeting.
Confluence can be also customized to make layout look more professional like using plugin like Adaptivist Theme Builder . If we have time - we can also use current web site design materials for it.
6. Miscellaneous issues
6.1 Meeting plan for 2009
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Minutes:
The proposed dates were accepted except the meeting from April 28-30 2009, which was moved to April 21-23 2009. The OATC wiki calendar has been updated to reflect the agreed dates for meetings.
6.2 How can Java developers contribute
(from Rob Knapen( There are some people expressing interest to contribute to the OpenMI
Java development, any ideas how this can be set up? Is it something the
OpenMI TC would like to handle, as part of the OpenMI open source
community?
Minutes:
Curret status: The Java SDK is under MyOpen Source on source forge is difficult for people to find.
Rob and Andrea will make a wiki HowTo page describing the Java SDK and explaining how to use it and where to download it.
6.3
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Submitted OpenMI compliance XML's
Since last meeting some XML has been submitted. See
Adrain has completed the first version of a tool that can take the OpenMIComplinanceInfo.xml file and transform it into readable HTML. This tool is intended to be used by the OATC in to take XML files submitted to the OpenMI Association and convert them to HTML and then put these op the OpenMI web (the OpenMI compliant components page). I tried to make it work, but I did not have sufficient patience to make it work. Always a problem with command line programs that take a number of arguments and file paths. Since this tool is something that is going to be used only whenever someone submits a XML file to the OpenMI Association for approval, I think it would be very useful with a simple user interface. Otherwise you will forget how to work with it from time to time. I can see that one of the arguments is the path to the xsd file. Would it not be simpler to have a copy of this file at the same place as the OpenMIComplinceHTML.exe file, it is always the same XSD file that should be used anyway.
As I see it a GUI will simply be one form / dialog which has a field to browse for the OpenMICompliance.xml file and one field to define the name and location of the ouput.HTML file.
Minutes:
Adrian made a nice user interface and the produced HTML files looks very nice. The general idea is that these HTML should be put on the official OpenMI page (www.openmi.org). However, we need to find out what to do with the model already listed. Jan will make a couple of wiki pages to see how this could be done, and subsequently mail OATC to ask for comments.
Jan Gregersen
6.4 Sourceforge SVN cleanup
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