122b566fdaf3a4bcb26835deaa0b537f1c7cc39a
chmalee
  Thu Jan 30 08:22:01 2020 -0800
Committing a stub of a track hub metadata help page I wrote a long time ago, refs #21641

diff --git src/hg/htdocs/goldenPath/help/metadata.html src/hg/htdocs/goldenPath/help/metadata.html
new file mode 100755
index 0000000..30c664f
--- /dev/null
+++ src/hg/htdocs/goldenPath/help/metadata.html
@@ -0,0 +1,117 @@
+<!DOCTYPE html>
+<!--#set var="TITLE" value="Adding Track Metadata" -->
+<!--#set var="ROOT" value="../.." -->
+
+<!-- Relative paths to support mirror sites with non-standard GB docs install -->
+<!--#include virtual="$ROOT/inc/gbPageStart.html" -->
+
+<h1>Adding metadata to tracks</h1>
+
+<h2>Contents</h2>
+
+<h6><a href="#intro">Adding metadata to tracks</a></h6>
+<h6><a href="#tagstom">Tagstorm metadata</a></h6>
+<h6><a href="#tabsep">Tab Sep metadata</a></h6>
+<h6><a href="#metadata">Previous metadata versions</a></h6>
+
+<a name="intro"></a>
+<h2>Adding metadata to tracks</h2>
+<p>
+Adding metadata to your tracks about cell lines, experimental protocols, or assays can be
+accomplished in a number of ways, via the newly supported <em>metadb</em> or <em>metatab</em>
+trackDb fields, or via the older style <em>metadata</em> trackDb field. The <em>metadb</em> and
+<em>metatab</em> fields link external tagStorm or tabSep metadata files to the data in the hub. The
+new formats are preferred over the older <em>metadata</em> field, although the <em>metadata</em>
+lines will continue to be supported for track hubs, but no new features will be added as they will
+for tagStorm and tabSep files.</p>
+
+<a name="metadata"></a>
+<h2>Previous metadata versions</h2>
+<p>
+Currently, in order to add metadata to your tracks, you must specify all of the metadata key-value
+pairs in each stanza of a track that includes metadata, like the last line of the following example:<br>
+<pre>
+    track oneA-1
+    bigDataUrl http://genome-test.soe.ucsc.edu/~chmalee/tagStormHubs/test2/bbi/one-a1.bb
+    parent oneA off
+    type bigBed 3
+    shortLabel oneA-1
+    longLabel oneA-1
+    color 250,108,0
+    visilibility dense
+    metadata  differentiation=10hour treatment=X donor=A lab=UCSC data_set_id=ucscTest1 access=group assay=long-RNA-seq enriched_in=exon life_stage=postpartum species="Homo sapiens" ucsc_db=hg38
+</pre>
+Each track must have a separate <em>metadata</em> field and its own list of key-values, which can become cumbersome when each track in a group all share a common subset of metadata. For instance, if there are 10 tracks in a composite or multiWig, where each subtrack only differs in the &quot;differentiation&quot; tag, it would be more convenient to have a shared set of metadata and then specify the differences for each track. This is the motivation behind the tagStorm format, described below.
+</p>
+
+<a name="tagstorm"></a>
+<h2>Tagstorm metadata</h2>
+<p>
+The tagStorm format is a plaintext file similar to the <em>trackDb.txt</em> file that describes all of
+the tracks in a <a href="hgTrackHubHelp.html">track hub</a>, in that both are files where the
+first word in a  line is the tag and the rest of the line is the value, and different stanza's are
+line delimited. TagStorm's are also similar to a spreadsheet, where a tag corresponds to a column
+and a stanza to an entire row. Here is a canonical tagStorm example:<br>
+<pre>
+lab UCSC
+data_set_id ucscTest1
+access group
+assay long-RNA-seq
+enriched_in exon
+life_stage postpartum
+species Homo sapiens
+ucsc_db hg38
+
+    treatment X
+    donor A
+
+        differentiation 10 hour
+        meta ucsc1_1
+
+        differentiation 1 day
+        meta ucsc1_4
+
+        differentiation 5 days
+        meta ucsc1_7
+
+    treatment Y
+
+        donor B
+
+            differentiation 10 hour
+            meta ucsc1_2
+
+            differentiation 1 day
+            meta ucsc1_5
+
+            differentiation 5 days
+            meta ucsc1_8
+
+        donor C
+
+            differentiation 10 hour
+            meta ucsc1_3
+
+            differentiation 1 day
+            meta ucsc1_6
+
+            differentiation 5 days
+            meta ucsc1_9
+</pre>
+<p>
+Each stanza, such as &quot;donor B&quot;, inherits from any stanzas above it at the right indentation level, and is a parent to
+stanzas beneath.</p>
+
+<a name="tabsep"></a>
+<h2>Tab sep metadata</h2>
+<p>
+</p>
+
+<a name="License"></a>
+<h2>Licensing information</h2>
+<p>
+GBiB is free for non-profit academic research and for personal use. Corporate use requires a
+license, setup fee and annual payment. To purchase a license or download the GBiB, visit the
+<a href="//genome-store.ucsc.edu/" target="_blank">Genome Browser store</a>.</p>
+
+<!--#include virtual="$ROOT/inc/gbPageEnd.html" -->