Source: site.view [edit]
Function name: help
Arguments:
Description: Collaborama help
Page type: snippet
Render function:  
Module: site

Page source:

<h1>Help</h1>

<p>Collaborama is a Collaborative Software Creation Ecoysystem (CSCE) that enables developers and teams to conceive of software ideas, gather requirements, get feedback, team up to work on a project, develop using an iterative process that encourages code reuse, and then test, deploy, market and sell the software project and/or select components or designs used in the project.  For a little more background and motivation, read  <a href="/webl/WubHub_DoIt?cmdline=site.about">about</a>  Collaborama.</p>

<h2>Collaborama Sidebar</h2>

<p>If you swing your mouse to the left side of a Collaborama screen, you will see a sidebar that helps guide you through the Collaborama process:</p>
<ul>
  <li><b>Invent</b>: create a new Project (same as Group, read below), gather requirements for the new project in an issue tracker, and create a presentation that lets you communicate your idea to others.</li>
  <li><b>Team Up</b>: Find the right people to work with you on your project, either Collaborama members or people with the right skills out in the world.</li>
  <li><b>Develop</b>: Begin building your application in an interative, loosely-coupled manner that makes massive code reuse easy as pie.</li>
    <li><b>Market</b>: Let others know about your project, and then release your creation into a marketplace of software and components.</li>
</ul>

  
<h2>Useful commands</h2>

<p>At the top of every Collaborama page is a command line which you can use to quickly access resources (e.g. type 'help' to get to this help page) or execute commands.  Collaborama has a variety of built-in commands that you can try, and you (and other members) can create new commands.
See the <a href="/webl/WubHub_DoIt?cmdline=examples">Examples Page</a>
for samples, or use the
<a href="/webl/WubHub_DoIt?cmdline=site.ls">ls</a>
command to get a complete list of commands available to you (just type "home" or "ls" above).</p>

Especially useful commands include:
<ul>
<li><i>ls</i>: List available resources and commands.
<li><i>view(...)</i>: View the source code of a resource.  This is a good way to get an idea of how Collaborama works.
<li><i>popular</i>: Show resources that are used most often.
<li><i>whatsnew</i>: See what new resources have been created recently.
</ul>


<h2>Adding New Commands</h2>

<p>Any member can help add new capabilities to Collaborama.
Resources are editable in a collaborative fashion, 
much like pages on a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki">wiki</a>.</p>
There are a few permissions restrictions; some particularly important
commands (like "edit") are read-only, for instance.

<p>Every command simply calls a particular resource.  There are several types of resources: a web page (fills whole browser), a web snippet (displays inside of Collaborama), a URL, text files, or functions written in JavaScript or WebScript.  WebScript
<a href="http://www.wubhub.com:4110/static/webl.pdf">WebScript programming language</a>,
is a simple scripting language that has special facilities for accessing
  and processing Web-related data.</p>

<p>
Functions are typically pieces of code
that may accept input and return a value, such as
a computed number, or the results of querying a search
engine.  The return value can also be an entire Web page,
or even a redirect to another Web site that holds the answer.
</p>

<h2>Groups</h2>

Groups are modules where a number of people can get together to work on a project or application.  When you create or join a group, you can edit all functions belonging to that group, and the group is added to your default execution path.  You may belong to more than one group at a time.

<ul>
  <li> To create a new group, use <webl>Wub_ALinkCmd("createGroup")</webl>
  <li> To invite someone to a group you belong to, use <webl>Wub_ALinkCmd("groupInvite(NameOfGroup,NumTokens)")</webl>
  <li> To signup for a group that someone has invited you to join, use <webl>Wub_ALinkCmd("groupSignup(NameOfGroup)")</webl>
  <li> To see all groups registered in Collaborama, use <webl>Wub_ALinkCmd("groups")</webl>
  <li> To see all members belonging to a group, use <webl>Wub_ALinkCmd("groupMembers(NameOfGroup)")</webl>

</ul>

<p>See the 
<a href="/webl/WubHub_DoIt?cmdline=site.programming">programming</a>
page for further details on writing Collaborama functions.</p>