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Concepts
This section of the documentation covers the use of Objects, Libraries and References, Notations, Styles and Types and how each is created, edited and used in the Sym application.
Library Locations and References
Locations are used to manage groups of libraries and documents. The purpose of locations is to make documents portable from one machine to another. To do that, locations can be online as well as on your local machine. If a document references online libraries, the required libraries will be downloaded automatically when the document is opened.
Publishing Libraries and Documents in a Location
The process of publishing the libraries and documents in a location is designed to do two things. First, it lets you put libraries and documents online for easy access just by copying the zip files and an XML file created during publishing to any online location. Second, it allows maintaining multiple versions of a library and makes is possible to reference either the most recent version and any previous versions in a document.

Concepts
This section of the documentation covers the use of Objects, Libraries and References, Notations, Styles and Types and how each is created, edited and used in the Sym application.
- Objects
  An object is the basic building block of all of the symbolic content contained in a document - every term in every symbolic expression in Sym is an instance of an object. Many of the objects used in Sym have an object definition that specifies how the object looks and behaves, but it's also possible to create objects that don't have object definitions. All objects are identified by their name and object names are always defined in a specific namespace. All object definitions contain a type definition. Optionally, objects can also contain Properties, Clauses, Renderings, and a Description.
- Library Locations and References
  Locations are used to manage groups of libraries and documents. The purpose of locations is to make documents portable from one machine to another. To do that, locations can be online as well as on your local machine. If a document references online libraries, the required libraries will be downloaded automatically when the document is opened.
  - Public locations
    Locations that are public allow you to reference libraries that are available online.
  - Local locations
    Local locations are locations on the machine you are currently using. The libraries and documents in local locations can be edited. Public locations refer to documents and libraries located online.
  - Creating public libraries and documents
    The process covered here is used when you want to create new documents and/or libraries that you intend to eventually publish online. To make this process easier, in addition to Local and Public locations, you can create Development locations.
  - Creating a New Library
    The objects and functionality in any document are largely determined by the libraries loaded in that document. You can add new objects, renderings and functionality by creating your own libraries. Libraries are created in locations.
  - Publishing Libraries and Documents in a Location
    The process of publishing the libraries and documents in a location is designed to do two things. First, it lets you put libraries and documents online for easy access just by copying the zip files and an XML file created during publishing to any online location. Second, it allows maintaining multiple versions of a library and makes is possible to reference either the most recent version and any previous versions in a document.
- Notations and Rendering
  The purpose of notations is to make it possible to easily change the way expressions are displayed. Notations are assigned to Document Modules, Unit Test Modules and Object Modules. The notation assigned determines which renderings are selected for each expression in the module.
- Styles
  Each notation refers to a stylesheet. Stylesheets define Styles. Styles are used in two places. First, they can be used to style text. Second, they can be used to style parts of an expression in a rendering. You can create new style and new stylesheets.
- Types
  Every term in every expression in a Sym document has a type assigned to it. Every object definition has a type definition as one of its components. Since type definitions can include things like type variables, Sym uses a type inferencing process to determine the explicit types assigned to each term in every expression.

Publishing Libraries and Documents in a Location

The process of publishing the libraries and documents in a location is designed to do two things. First, it lets you put libraries and documents online for easy access just by copying the zip files and an XML file created during publishing to any online location. Second, it allows maintaining multiple versions of a library and makes is possible to reference either the most recent version and any previous versions in a document.

Publishing of libraries and documents is done in the Location List, to open the Location List, select Edit > Location list... from the main menu . To publish some or all of the libraries in a location, right-click on a location to open the context menu and select Publish location.... The Publish Location dialog shows the next version number, the number of files that will be included and allows you to change the selected files.

A new version number is assigned each time the location is published. Version numbers are assigned to the location not to the individual libraries.

When the Publish Location dialog is opened, all files in that location are initially included in the list of selected files. The list of files to be included in the new version can be changed using the Select button in the Publish Location dialog.

The publication process takes all of the files included in the new version and combines them into a single zip file which is placed in the Published directory under the directory assigned to the location. It also updates the SymList.xml file. If this zip file and the SymList.xml file are copied to a public location, they will be available for use by other users. Each time you publish a location, a zip file is added to the Published directory and the SymList.xml file in the Published directory replaced by a new copy that includes a list of the files in the new version.

The publish process does NOT upload the files. It does everything but the upload. The files that need to be uploaded are placed in the Published directory under the directory for the location.