| Help with help files. [message #6901] |
Wed, 04 September 1996 00:00  |
Dyer Lytle
Messages: 11
Registered: April 1996
|
Junior Member |
|
|
Hi all,
I was wondering how people handle on-line documentation in IDL.
We have developed about 8 different applications in IDL that we
distribute to our user base of about 40 people at various locations
and each of these applications has associated with it one or more
online "help" files. Currently, we ask our users to define their
"IDL_PATH" so that IDL can find the various tasks to execute and
we have them define a directory called "IDL_DOC" that we reference
whenever we call "xdisplayfile" from an application, i.e.
CASE event OF
'help': BEGIN
xdisplayfile,'$IDL_DOC/example.hlp'
END
Does anyone know a way to somehow use "IDL_PATH" to find this
documentation rather then useing a seperate environmental variable?
Or perhaps someone has a better approach to IDL on-line documentation?
Thanks in advance,
-Dyer
--
------------------------------
Dyer Lytle
dlytle@as.arizona.edu
http://tigger.as.arizona.edu/~dlytle
HST NICMOS Project
Steward Observatory
University of Arizona
------------------------------
|
|
|
|
| Re: Help with help files. [message #6976 is a reply to message #6901] |
Thu, 05 September 1996 00:00  |
A. Maudsley
Messages: 5
Registered: September 1996
|
Junior Member |
|
|
My solution doesn't really address your question, but here's another
approach for on-line documentation.
I have written some help information using HTML, and then spawn Netscape
(or whatever your favorite browser may be) from my IDL application. If
Netscape is already defined on the path of your system then you don't need
to use another environment variable. I implemented a routine which actually
does look for an environment variable which points to the browser
executable, but if it isn't defined it defaults to "Netscape
'help_file'.html". You can find the routine SHOWHTML at my (in development)
web site:
http://www.va.ucsf.edu/mrs/mrs_vamc.htm
You can pass either a local filename or a URL. I have tested it with SUN
and Windows.
Andrew
Dyer Lytle <dlytle@as.arizona.edu> wrote in article
<322DB2EA.263E@as.arizona.edu>...
>
> I was wondering how people handle on-line documentation in IDL.
> We have developed about 8 different applications in IDL that we
> distribute to our user base of about 40 people at various locations
> and each of these applications has associated with it one or more
> online "help" files. Currently, we ask our users to define their
> "IDL_PATH" so that IDL can find the various tasks to execute and
> we have them define a directory called "IDL_DOC" that we reference
> whenever we call "xdisplayfile" from an application, i.e.
>
> CASE event OF
>
> 'help': BEGIN
> xdisplayfile,'$IDL_DOC/example.hlp'
> END
>
> Does anyone know a way to somehow use "IDL_PATH" to find this
> documentation rather then useing a seperate environmental variable?
> Or perhaps someone has a better approach to IDL on-line documentation?
>
> Thanks in advance,
>
> -Dyer
|
|
|
|
| Re: Help with help files. [message #6980 is a reply to message #6901] |
Thu, 05 September 1996 00:00 |
David Foster
Messages: 341
Registered: January 1996
|
Senior Member |
|
|
Dyer Lytle wrote:
>
> Hi all,
>
> I was wondering how people handle on-line documentation in IDL.
> We have developed about 8 different applications in IDL that we
> distribute to our user base of about 40 people at various locations
> and each of these applications has associated with it one or more
> online "help" files. Currently, we ask our users to define their
> "IDL_PATH" so that IDL can find the various tasks to execute and
> we have them define a directory called "IDL_DOC" that we reference
> whenever we call "xdisplayfile" from an application, i.e.
>
> CASE event OF
>
> 'help': BEGIN
> xdisplayfile,'$IDL_DOC/example.hlp'
> END
>
> Does anyone know a way to somehow use "IDL_PATH" to find this
> documentation rather then useing a seperate environmental variable?
> Or perhaps someone has a better approach to IDL on-line documentation?
If you include $IDL_DOC or one of its parent directories in IDL_PATH
and then put a single file with the .pro extension in the directory,
IDL will find it. It does not include directories that do not contain
any .pro files.
We use a similar scheme for help files, and I've written a program
that you can call to explicitly display a certain help file, or choose
from a list of help files. It also lets you look at .pro files as an
option. You can search for text in the file, which is pretty useful.
The one big difference is this program expects to find the help files
in the same directories as the .pro files. If you think this might
be useful or something you could modify, let me know and I'll send
you a copy.
Dave
--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~
David S. Foster Univ. of California, San Diego
Programmer/Analyst Brain Image Analysis Laboratory
foster@bial1.ucsd.edu Department of Psychiatry
(619) 622-5892 8950 Via La Jolla Drive, Suite 2200
La Jolla, CA 92037
[ UCSD Mail Code 0949 ]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~
|
|
|
|
| Re: Help with help files. [message #6996 is a reply to message #6901] |
Wed, 04 September 1996 00:00 |
thompson
Messages: 584
Registered: August 1991
|
Senior Member |
|
|
Dyer Lytle <dlytle@as.arizona.edu> writes:
> Hi all,
> I was wondering how people handle on-line documentation in IDL.
> We have developed about 8 different applications in IDL that we
> distribute to our user base of about 40 people at various locations
> and each of these applications has associated with it one or more
> online "help" files. Currently, we ask our users to define their
> "IDL_PATH" so that IDL can find the various tasks to execute and
> we have them define a directory called "IDL_DOC" that we reference
> whenever we call "xdisplayfile" from an application, i.e.
> CASE event OF
> 'help': BEGIN
> xdisplayfile,'$IDL_DOC/example.hlp'
> END
> Does anyone know a way to somehow use "IDL_PATH" to find this
> documentation rather then useing a seperate environmental variable?
> Or perhaps someone has a better approach to IDL on-line documentation?
What we do is to use a program called XDOC which allows one to access the
documentation headers at the beginning of each file. It's a very nice program
where one can explore the entire IDL_PATH tree.
We also have a routine called FIND_WITH_DEF that finds a file anywhere in a
series of directories, so that one could do, for instance
xdisplayfile, find_with_def('example.hlp', !PATH)
This software is available as part of the Solar Software library at
http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/software.html
ftp://sohoftp.nascom.nasa.gov/solarsoft/gen/idl/help (and /system)
I think it's also available from the Astronomy User's Library at
http://idlastro.gsfc.nasa.gov/ftp/
ftp://idlastro.gsfc.nasa.gov/
Bill Thompson
|
|
|
|
comp.lang.idl-pvwave archive
Members
Search
Help
Login
Home
