CUSTOM LANGUAGE SUPPORT FOR PROJECT DOCUMENTATION AND EDITING

• US 20080127091A1
• Filed: 09/29/2006
• Published: 05/29/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 09/29/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Rockwell Automation Technologies Incorporated (Allen-Bradley Co., Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Rockwell Automation Technologies Incorporated (Allen-Bradley Co., Inc.)
• Inventors: Stanek, Christopher E., Curry, David R., Malaspina, Fabio, Ericsson, Matthew R., Bliss, Ronald E., Belcher, John E.
• Granted Patent: US 8,181,157 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 717/123
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/73 Program documentation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/454 Multi-language systems; Localisation; Internationalisation

Abstract

A software documentation system is provided. This includes a documentation object to store documentation data of an application. One or more custom language components are stored with the documentation objects to provide language display options for the application. The custom language components can be applied as a tag to indicate that tagged data items are to remain in a designated form such as a string name that is to remain in the designated language of the documentation designer. The custom language components can also be specified as differing forms of a similar language.

Claims

1. A software documentation system, comprising:

a documentation object to store documentation data of an application; and

one or more custom language components that are stored with the documentation object to provide language display options for the application.

2. The system of claim 1, the custom language components are applied as a tag to indicate that tagged data items are to remain in a designated language form.

3. The system of claim 1, the custom language components are specified as differing forms of a similar language or specified as differing forms of a user-defined language.

4. The system of claim 1, the custom language components are associated with a number of words identifier, where a verbose form includes more words than a terse form of the custom language components.

5. The system of claim 1, the custom language components are associated with a language dialect.

6. The system of claim 1, the custom language components are associated with a user'"'"'s role.

7. The system of claim 6, the user'"'"'s role is related to an operator role, a designer role, a maintenance role, a security role, and a managerial role.

8. The system of claim 1, the custom language components are associated with a security identifier.

9. The system of claim 1, further comprising a selection component that is linked to a cursor that triggers activation of an editor.

10. The system of claim 9, the editor is associated with a programming language editor.

11. The system of claim 10, the programming language editor is associated with ladder logic, sequential function charts, tag editors, properties editors, function block editors, or structured text editors.

12. The system of claim 1, further comprising at least one configuration menu to provide configuration options for the custom language components.

13. The system of claim 12, the configuration menu provides interfaces to allow the custom language components to be named in accordance with a configurable root language.

14. The system of claim 1, the configuration menu includes a component to localize the custom language components.

15. The system of claim 1, further comprising a project documentation manager to control one or more current languages, one or more default languages, and one or more custom languages.

16. The system of claim 1, further comprising a naming convention component that automatically harmonizes names designated for the custom language components with at least one standard.

17. The system of claim 16, the naming convention component is associated with an RFC 1776 naming standard.

18. The system of claim 1, further comprising a language switch to alter documentation displays between one or more selected languages.

19. A computer readable medium having a data structure stored thereon to facilitate documentation, comprising:

a first data field to specify a current language component;

a second data field to specify one or more custom language components that are defined with the current language; and

a third data field that binds the custom language components to the current language component.

20. The computer readable medium of claim 19, further comprising a tag field to identify a portion of a documentation object that is to remain as non-localized text.

21. The computer readable medium of claim 19, further comprising a role field to identity how the custom language components are to be displayed.

22. The computer readable medium of claim 21, the role field associated with a security role, a maintenance role, an operator role, a designer role, a managerial role, and a developer role.

23. The computer readable medium of claim 19, further comprising a verbose field to control how much documentation is to be displayed.

24. The computer readable medium of claim 19, further comprising a switch field to indicate a change from a current language to at least one custom language component.

25. The computer readable medium of claim 19, further comprising at least one configuration field for the one or more custom language components.

26. A method to generate documentation, comprising:

defining one or more comments in a current language;

defining one or more other comment forms for the current language; and

displaying the other comment forms as one or more custom language forms to the current language.

27. The method of claim 26, further comprising automatically generating a name for the one or more custom language forms.

28. The method of claim 26, further comprising switching between the one or more custom language forms via a user interface

29. The method of claim 26, further comprising tagging a component of the current language as an un-localizable form.

30. A development system, comprising:

means for displaying a documentation object according to a current language context; and

means for storing custom language data associated with the documentation object to generate at least one alternative form of project documentation.

31. The development system of claim 34, further comprising means for switching between a current language context and an alternative language context.