[Insight-users] Insight Journal submission: problems at every step of the way.

[Julien Jomier]

Hi Zach,

I completely understand your disappointment and I want to thank you for 
pursing the different issues and providing a very descriptive and useful 
explanation of them.

Problem 1 sounds like a bug, at the end of the MIDAS process you should 
be redirected to the main Insight Journal webpage to finish your 
publication. I'll take a look at this problem.

Problem 2: you can upload the files as one archive or multiple files, it 
shouldn't matter. Regarding the .tgz files I will take a look, but they 
are supported.

Problem 3. You should specify what ITK version you want to use. Like 
ITK2.4.1 in your CMakeLists.txt.

Problem 4. Sounds like a bug. I just fixed it. You should be able to 
upload a new file, otherwise let me know.

Just to let you know, the Insight Journal was implemented in a short 
amount of time and we know that it is not optimal. We are currently in 
the process of improving it, especially the submission of new revisions 
(via cvs/svn) and the documentation. It should be better in the near future.

Again, I'd like to thank you for improving the Insight Journal, let me 
know if I can do anything to help.

Julien

Zachary Pincus wrote:
> Hi folks,
> 
> I just submitted a brief Insight Journal submission describing a 2D 
> image contour extraction filter that I wrote, which I hope will prove 
> useful and merit inclusion in ITK. Unfortunately, I have had some 
> problems with this entire process, culminating in my code not building 
> because of some bizarre configuration issue on the build machine that I 
> of course cannot diagnose, and then being unable to submit a revision to 
> said code in the hopes of remotely diagnosing the problem.
> 
> Here is a list of the problems I have encountered today with the Insight 
> Journal.
> 
> Problem 0 is the simple fact that documentation for this entire process 
> is scattered across at least two wikis (the itk wiki, and the insight 
> software colloquium wiki), with important information (like the latex 
> and source code templates for submission) only available on the itk 
> wiki. Figuring out what, precisely, I needed to do and how to do it took 
> far too long.
> 
> Problem 1 was that despite the fact that at the end of the new 
> submission process, I clicked "finish" and got an email saying that the 
> submission had been accepted, the paper did not show up in the Insight 
> Journal. Only after I clicked on "My Publications" and saw at the end of 
> the line a "finish publication" did I find yet more steps to complete. I 
> guess I clicked only on the "finish" button inside the MIDAS frame, but 
> perhaps not on the finish button outside of the frame? Having two finish 
> buttons to press is confusing and counterintuitive.
> 
> Problem 2 centers around including source files for the automated build 
> system. Nowhere was it particularly well-explained that source code 
> should be uploaded alongside the article file -- I spent some time 
> searching for a specific entry point to upload source for the automated 
> build program. Only on my third perusal of 
> http://www.insightsoftwareconsortium.org/wiki/index.php/IJ-Testing-Environment 
> did I notice that source should be uploaded as a secondary file and the 
> build script will find it there.
> 
> So, I included a Source.tgz archive as a secondary file. However, tgz 
> files are marked as unsupported and the upload process gave me trouble 
> about that, despite the fact that the build system apparently had no 
> problem opening it.
> 
> Problem 3 is that the code will not build on the test system. The 
> problem is that the #define'd constant ITK_LOCATION (defined in 
> itkMacro.h) is mysteriously unavailable to my code on the build machine, 
> despite the fact that this constant is used throughout the ITK codebase 
> (grep for it), and itkMacro.h should have been included properly. The 
> same code compiles fine on my machine, where header files are properly 
> included.
> 
> Problem 4 came when I tried to fix the build issue. On the "My 
> Publications" link, there are two options: "modify revision" and "post a 
> new revision." Surprisingly, "modify revision" in no way allows you to 
> modify the revision. It just allows the exact same revision to be 
> re-posted. How this is a modification is beyond me. The "post new 
> revision" link then takes me to an extremely confusing frame with the 
> directions to "Scroll down the frame and click on 'Add Bitstream'." When 
> I did this and attempted to upload a new version of the PDF and 
> source.tgz, I was provided with an AUTHORIZATION REQUIRED page because 
> the operation was not permitted. So I can't add a new file, and so I 
> can't even begin to try to diagnose why the build fails on the build 
> machine.
> 
> All in all, this process has been extremely frustrating. Though I 
> support the intention behind this all, the fact is that I've spent a day 
> writing a "journal submission" describing an algorithm that is as old as 
> the hills and whose implementation is straightforward (and exceptionally 
> thoroughly documented in the code itself), and was then rewarded with 
> getting to spend all evening fiddling around with the submit process. 
> This is not a good use of my time.
> 
> Next time I write code for a basic, classic image processing method that 
> ITK needs but does not have for some reason, I'll have to think twice 
> about bothering to deal with all of this.
> 
> Zach
> 
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