Thuban more modular?

[Russell Nelson]

Jonathan Coles writes:
 > what are people's thoughts on moving some of what is now
 > core-functionality into Extensions?

I think this is a good idea.  Here's how I would implement it:

Separable Thuban functions get split out into their own Extension
module.  This module would export a set of standard functions that let
Thuban know what menu entries to add, and it would also make
functionality available to other Extensions.  The module is
executable, and if run stand-alone (outside of Thuban), takes
parameters on its command line, or (perhaps) prompts for them.  So,
people can use Thuban Extensions three ways:

  o From inside Thuban.
  o From the command line.
  o Inside a Python program of their own authoring.

So, for example, there would be a "postscript" module.  It would allow
a Thuban UI user to save the current map as postscript.  It would also
allow you to run it from the command line as "postscript.py
foobar.session foobar.ps".  Or a Python coder could:

#!/usr/bin/python

from Thuban.Model.session import Session
from Thuban.Lib.postscript import Postscript

# this isn't correct, but it's just an example.
session = Session.read_session("foobar.session")
Postscript.write(session, "foobar.ps")

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