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

[Miller, James V (GE, Research)]

Julien, 

Here are some thoughts on the submission process.  If I recall correctly, 
when you do the submission, the user is told that a wizard will walk them 
through the steps.  The user is presented with a multiframe window
where the top frame gives the first set of directions, the middle frame
shows a MIDAS interface, and the bottom frame is the finalize section.

The first time I used the system, I completely missed the bottom frame.  
I was looking for it and it blended into the background.  

One suggestion would be to have two side by side frames.  The left
frame lists ALL the steps and the right frame shows MIDAS.

Another alternative is to use a different background color for the 
"wizard" frames to distinguish them from the MIDAS frame.

The ultimate solution would be to abstract the IJ user experience
from the MIDAS system.  The user would never be presented with any MIDAS
screen.  This would include the drop box for the original submission as 
well as the drop box for updating a submission.

Jim

-----Original Message-----
From: insight-users-bounces+millerjv=crd.ge.com at itk.org
[mailto:insight-users-bounces+millerjv=crd.ge.com at itk.org]On Behalf Of
Julien Jomier
Sent: Thursday, February 02, 2006 12:02 AM
To: Zachary Pincus
Cc: Insight Users
Subject: Re: [Insight-users] Insight Journal submission: problems at
everystep of the way.


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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> 

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