3 ideas for Scilab

[Pierre JUILLARD]

Hi guys,

I would like to submit 3 ideas to Scilab developpers that may be of interest
or not (as a potential user, I find them interesting :)).
I haven't find a clue if such functionalities are already available, and I
don't know if I should add them to the Scilab bug tracker or write a SEP or
something else. If one of the developper find them interesting, I can add
them to the idea page for GSoC.


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*Idea 1*: generation of doxygen-like documentation and/or UML diagrams from
Scilab set of scripts

Context: let's assume a guy is developping/maintaining quite a number of
modelling toolboxes written in Scilab.
In order to share then the library development with other people, it would
be easier to have a tool able to generate graphs showing the organization of
the toolboxes, with hyperlinks to documentation pages containing what can be
said of this or that Scilab functions, and so on...

Origin of the idea: the doxygen documentation of the VTK library, for
instance:
http://www.vtk.org/doc/nightly/html/classvtkQuadraturePointInterpolator.html

Addtionnal idea: have it available as a service on
http://forge.scilab.org/index.php?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 *Idea 2*: implementation of a:
- spreadsheet user interface quite similar to excel or openoffice
calc (should it be a port of openoffice calc?) with standard function
like possibility to define functions in a cell and so on...
- implementation of an "intelligent" parser able to save the content of the
spreadsheet into scilab scripts.
 Basically, such Scilab scripts would contain definition of variables and
matrix operations.

It maybe complex, but till now, as a basic user of excel, I have not find
any content that I could not translate into Scilab scripts.
I guess that however, quite a number of "default" behaviours should be
defined like how to name this or that variable in Scilab scripts if a name
has not been defined in the spreadsheet view.
In addition, a function that would allow keeping track of the variable
positions (in which cell was written this value ofr this vector?) in the
spreadsheet view will be necessary when writing the corresponding Scilab
scripts

Context:
- through the spreadsheet view, ease the massive number of excel users to be
able to start using Scilab for classical matrices operations
- ease in Scilab matrix manipulations by offering a traditionnal spreadsheet
easy to use (without having to manage scripts, and wonder if the arrows and
columns are correctly matching at matrix operations and so on...)

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
*Idea 3*: (after Idea 2) port the excel file reading function from
openoffice to Scilab that would be able to feed the spreadsheet user
interface implemented in Idea 2. With the saving functions developped in
Idea 2 as well,one would obtain an Excel to Scilab translator.

Context:
- Have an excel translator in Scilab

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

What do you think of it?
Bests,

Pierre
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