Usage notes

[tsmbland]

Just compiling some notes on things that could be improved as I start using the tool. This is very much a live document and will be updated as I go along.

DOCUMENTATION

• Move processes table above process_availabilities etc. (Illogical table order in documentation for input files #842)
• decision_rule "simple" -> "single? (Fix small errors in input file docs #841)
• Make font size smaller in tables
• Make tables consistent width
• Move developer settings to another section/page (Move some model.toml options to "developer"/"expert" section #711)
• Commodity type description is wrong (Fix small errors in input file docs #841)
• Process availabilities: hi vs lo vs fx outdated (Fix small errors in input file docs #841)

INPUT DATA

• Rename levies file. This can also be used to capture the cost of consuming OTH commodities where this isn't really a levy.
• Should give leeway in terms of column names (e.g. "utilization_factor" vs "utilisation_factor", "year" vs "years", "commodity_portion" vs "portion") (Warn about unrecognised columns in csv files #746)
• Lifetime: should allow floats with .0 (error message is confusing: "invalid digit found in string") (Confusing error message when using floats for years #843)
• Processes: if start_year is undefined, this should allow all years before the end_year, rather than defaulting to the first year of the time framework (i.e. should allow assets commissioned before the start year) (Undefined start_year/end_year should mean "no limit", rather than first/last milestone year #846)
• Should allow "..YEAR" to say "this year and all previous years". Or allow year ranges with appropriate syntax (e.g. "2000..2020") (Allow year ranges in input files #845)
• agent_search_space file - allow it to be missing (Make agent_search_space.csv and agent_cost_limits.csv files optional #744)
• agent_cost_limits file - allow it to be empty (i.e. no cost limits) (Make agent_search_space.csv and agent_cost_limits.csv files optional #744)
• Allow commodity levies file to be empty (Commodities levies file cannot be empty #784)
• Allow rows in the demand file with zero demand (Allow zero demand in the demand file #850)
• Allow no existing assets (if there's no demand in the base year) (Allow empty assets file #851)

ERROR MESSAGES

• Invalid objective: should give the list of options (Error message for incorrect enum values could be improved #848)
• If error message is extremely long (e.g. lots of missing data) then sometimes can't see the top of the error message. Should cap these at circa 10 entries (Some error messages may be extremely long #852)

[tsmbland]

This is a bit redundant now that we have issues for most of these things (most of which are closed)