Publishing your formulas

When you have written a new formula, you might want to publish it, so other people can use it as 

well. You can publish it using the online formula database at 

formulas.ultrafractal.com

.

Before publishing your formula, take a step back and ask yourself the following questions:

G     

Does your new formula add something that is not already available in the formula database? 

In other words, is it worth trying for other people?

G     

Have you carefully considered all parameters and the effect that they have? Usually, 

formulas with fewer parameters are more effective and easier to use. Don t add extra 

parameters just because they look interesting.

G     

Have you added 

help and hints

 to make your formula easier to use?

In general, you should take responsibility for the formulas that you publish. For complex formulas, 

you might want to have them beta tested by a small group of people first. Consider that it might not 

be possible to fix problems later without breaking compatibility with parameter sets produced by 

earlier versions.

When you are revising and improving your formula files, make sure that you do not break backwards 

compatibility either. Here are some guidelines to help you:

G     

Do not give the formula a different entry identifier, unless you know what you are doing. 

Parameter files reference the formula by its identifier, so they cannot be restored anymore if 

the identifier has been changed. You can always change the 

title

 of the formula, of course.

G     

Do not change the identifiers of existing parameters in your formula, since parameter sets 

reference parameters in a formula by their identifiers. Instead, change their 

captions

.

G     

When using 

enumerated parameters

, do not change the names of the existing items. It is 

possible though to change their order and add new items without breaking existing 

parameter sets.

See Also

Public formulas

Compatibility

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