Inline Documentation

[proxemics]

Thanks for the input and I totally understand and agree with every word you say.
Let's brainstorm about it so it can be both usable, practical and would work also with multiple projects while taking me as less as possible development time.
I threw in some things that come to my head which needs attention for that for sure and some insights:
- Included in the project file is not possible for memory reasons (all text must be available in the memory for any project save)
- Excluded from the project would possibly create a hole since a doc which might not be available anymore which is linked somehow
- Is a FX the good place to access the docu? I don't really think so. Maybe the Nerd Menu would be a better place
- I can load text on the fly and most probably seamless and do a simple text viewer (simple as in really simple, drawing only pages and only be able to change between pages from up>down). The reason of the simplicity is 1st making it more advanced takes quite some development time. Editing is also a bit tricky. Maybe easy if I would reduce it to one page but getting more tricky if I would have multiple pages as I need to load everything into memory then...and I can't remember the times when I had enough memory to do stuff :-)
Seeking in the file here is possible but crazy to implement. My time is more than limited and I don't think getting too deep here is too important.
However, a simple solution which would meet most of the requirements would definitely be worth the time. QWERTx keyboard editing is also possible and maybe the best and only solution (beside external editing) as I would need to write a deeper on screen keyboard editor else. It is possible of course, but the current keyboard takes already 1/2 of the screen height and being able to edit a full page (which would probably be 3/4 of the screen) would involve scrolling again.
- How to define which file should be viewed in an easy way (Maybe 3 kind of docu depending on the current screen and row..if you are on the sequencer screen row 01 then it would use PROJECTFILENAME-SEQ-DOCU-01.txt as the filename. Pattern screen row 1F would be PROJECTFILENAME-PAT-DOCU-1F.txt and mapping row 04 would be PROJECTFILENAME-MAP-DOCU-04.txt.  Just an idea, all could be accessed easily from the Nerd Menu. Marking any row that there is a docu available is not possible.

I am sure I can find many more issues on the way...but some solution should be possible.

Thanks for your quick reply! I may not always be so quick but I'm in it for the long haul!

>- Included in the project file is not possible for memory reasons
I suspected as much.

>-Excluded from the project would possibly create a hole since a doc which might not be available anymore which is linked somehow
Yes this is a danger. As long as it soft-failed, though, I suspect people who separate their files by mistake could figure it out and fix it.

>- Is a FX the good place to access the docu? I don't really think so. Maybe the Nerd Menu would be a better place
My motivation was to be able to have inline comments: like // rather than a big /* block */. Nerd Menu can work too, but comments specific to a place (that would get copied and pasted to move with notes and FX) seems optimal? Row references in filenames is a good compromise, but would that be "smart" loading? Like, if you select "doc" from the nerd menu in a pattern row, would it autoload the specific doc for the row you are on, or would you just find it from a list? If the latter, would it rename if you nudged the row up or down? If the latter, I buy the idea 100%. But if nudging a row up or down would require renaming the document (or having the wrong association) I'd be concerned.

> Seeking in the file here is possible but crazy to implement
All good. Entering text from keyboard is okay! Not having full Emacs is okay! Code comments are supposed to be simple.

> Marking any row that there is a docu available is not possible.
Okay, but I guess that's another argument for FX, where you could see DOCU (or CMNT)?

I guess my proposal was imagining FX to be a very fine-grained documentation. Another way of looking at it is that if the Mapping Matrix is what pushes the need for documentation over the edge, that's one place where just a single document would be really helpful. So hitting Nerd Menu would have the option: Comment (Map). Another would be project level, where in the Project Menu there would be a Comment (Proj). Others might be track (cursor on track) and pattern (within pattern screen). Just those four would (I suspect) solve most problems. 

Pattern numbers don't change when they are moved within the project. I move rows around all the time, so I suspect row comments lead to more edge conditions... leaving rows out could be fine. But I could imagine wanting to document something tricky in a row FX, and then the file names would be wrong when you moved it. Similarly with patterns, what happens to the comment when you clone a pattern? Does it clone a copy of the document and rename it? 

This is all a lot of work and decisions, but clearly you are good at both! Thanks again for considering this.