{Sorry for the delay in contributing this, I've been away the past few days.)
In BioLink, we have the following options/commands:
Compile with the options to: Compile Once Always Compile From Children Refresh Compile
Inherit with the options to: Inherit Once Always Inherit From Parent Refresh Inherit We do this independently for each cell or attribute (that is, for each character for each taxon/item, or for each character by taxon/item intersection). This way you can build a full description by compiling some characters from children while inheriting other characters from the parent.
We allow you to either regenerate these data automatically (by selecting the "Always Compile/Inherit from Children/Parent" command) or to create a static copy of the data so you can fine-tune it by manually inserting comments and clarifications (with the danger that changes to children/parents will not be reflected).
Our hope is that by including the phrases "from children" and "from parent" in the commands that we can make the actions of these commands clear without having to resort to looking these terms up in the help files or, worse, a dictionary.
Steve Shattuck CSIRO Entomology steve.shattuck@csiro.au