Announcing GitHub PluginCafe BETA

On 24/04/2014 at 10:59, xxxxxxxx wrote:

Hi - this is very exciting news! That said, and maybe this is lack of experience with GitHub, but I'd like some middle ground between the current SDK documentation, and the GitHub system.

What I'm missing:

* A list of a SDK accessible classes/functions as you see in our current documentation.
* Syntax highlighting of the SDK examples (specifically Python examples) online.
* A cleaner link between the Q&A; format of PluginCafe and the code examples of the SDK. Perhaps something closer to StackOverflow?

I think a lot of this could be accomplished by taking the current SDK docs and using something more akin to a Wiki format, so that we can add examples and explanation to the classes/methods listed.

On 24/04/2014 at 14:05, xxxxxxxx wrote:

I finally tried, it works great!

Thanks!

On 25/04/2014 at 14:24, xxxxxxxx wrote:

Hi Moustach, thanks for telling us. Would be bad if not :)

Thanks for your feedback, Donovan.
@1: Which classes/functions and where would you like them to be listed?
@2: I've sent a message to the GitHub support already (see #4)
@3: We'll be looking at it. :wink:

Cheers,
-Niklas

On 25/04/2014 at 17:44, xxxxxxxx wrote:

Hey Niklas,

Perhaps I'm not totally clear on the goals of this project. Is the GitHub Repo meant to replace the current SDK documentation or is it supposed to be a supplement?

If it's meant to replace the docs, then there are a lot of nice things about the docs that the GitHub repo doesn't currently address:

* A general introduction to programming in C4D
* Links to helpful websites/books/etc
* A list of all SDK accessible classes & methods
* A searchable list of keywords
* Short examples (albeit few and far between) of how to use various methods right below their definition.

If the goal of the repo is to supplement the current docs, then I'd really like for there to be an easy way to point people from the current docs to all of the examples in the GitHub SDK where a given class/method is used. Ideally that would probably be something like wiki-editable docs, or a comments thread under each method where people can discuss them.

I think that the GitHub wiki would be a good place to start adding an FAQ section, and list of helpful tutorials, etc.

Also, there's a fair amount of overlap between the Python & C++ SDKs - because they're currently separate repos, any helpful documentation (about the way that C4D works) will need to be duplicated between the repos.

I'm not sure how to address these issues, but these are my first impressions.

-Donovan

On 25/04/2014 at 17:46, xxxxxxxx wrote:

Oh, and thanks for sending a message to GitHub support - here's hoping they start syntax highlighting for .pyp!

On 26/04/2014 at 08:09, xxxxxxxx wrote:

Originally posted by xxxxxxxx

Hey Niklas,

Perhaps I'm not totally clear on the goals of this project. Is the GitHub Repo meant to replace the current SDK documentation or is it supposed to be a supplement?

If it's meant to replace the docs, then there are a lot of nice things about the docs that the GitHub repo doesn't currently address:

* A general introduction to programming in C4D
* Links to helpful websites/books/etc
* A list of all SDK accessible classes & methods
* A searchable list of keywords
* Short examples (albeit few and far between) of how to use various methods right below their definition.

If the goal of the repo is to supplement the current docs, then I'd really like for there to be an easy way to point people from the current docs to all of the examples in the GitHub SDK where a given class/method is used. Ideally that would probably be something like wiki-editable docs, or a comments thread under each method where people can discuss them.

I think that the GitHub wiki would be a good place to start adding an FAQ section, and list of helpful tutorials, etc.

Also, there's a fair amount of overlap between the Python & C++ SDKs - because they're currently separate repos, any helpful documentation (about the way that C4D works) will need to be duplicated between the repos.

I'm not sure how to address these issues, but these are my first impressions.

-Donovan

Hi Donovan,

It seems like I have been quite inaccurate about the project goals, I'm sorry for the confusion. The
SDKs are not meant to replace the documentation! They could never, they're just code examples.
They're meant to replace the existing SDKs (being collections of plugin examples) which you can find
in the Cinema 4D plugins/ folder for the C++ SKD and in the help/examples/ folder of the Python Docs
archive.
The code there is mostly rotten and old, little documented and bad structured.

We're working on a solution to integrate the SDK repositories with the online documentation already.

The GitHub wiki will soon be filled with such stuff, including our coding style guidelines (for which it would
be nice if contributors stick to it, but its not absolutely necessary)

We will try to keep the examples in sync, meaning that the same example plugin in Python is available
in C++ (see the starters/ folder in each repository for instance), but it's not always possible.

Best,
-Niklas

On 26/04/2014 at 08:37, xxxxxxxx wrote:

In other words. He's trying to do what I've been doing for years.
https://sites.google.com/site/scottayersmedia/plugins
Except using GitHub, instead of a static web page.
So you guys can also send things in and participate if you would like to contribute to it.

I hope it works out better than the last one did: http://c4dprogramming.wordpress.com/
That one started out wonderfully. But then died as quickly as it started.

-ScottA

On 15/05/2014 at 10:37, xxxxxxxx wrote:

Thank god!  I love github!

On 31/05/2014 at 23:15, xxxxxxxx wrote:

Any news on the Xcode project file?

On 16/06/2014 at 03:30, xxxxxxxx wrote:

Hi Moustach,

sorry for the late reply. Visual Studio 2012 project files have just been added. XCode project
files will follow soon.

Cheers,
-Niklas

On 29/07/2014 at 17:21, xxxxxxxx wrote:

Any update on those XCode project files?
Thanks!

Donovan