| Re: Online help with non-windowing devices [message #4621 is a reply to message #4452] |
Fri, 30 June 1995 00:00   |
landsman
Messages: 93
Registered: August 1991
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Member |
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> I have extensive sets of my own help files
> that I merge into the system help databases, but with this bloody new
> hyperhelp (piece of crap if you ask me) you can only merge files in .hlp
> format for which there are no compilation routines provided. When you run
> MAN_PROC it sees nothing because IDL v4.0 comes with no .help files in the
> help/ dir under the IDL tree. What you have to do is go into the pro dirs in
> the tree and build your own sets of .help files using MK_LIBRARY_HELP and
> then dump those files into the help/ dir. Then MAN_PROC will see them. I've
> given up on hyperhelp and use widget_olh pretty much all the time.
Well, it *is* quite useful to have the complete IDL documentation on-line in
hypertext format. It probably would have been appreciated a lot more, though,
if it wasn't for the annoyance of having to use separate help facilities for
RSI-created and user-created procedures.
I do have a somewhat pedantic complaint about the use of the "?" symbol to
access the hyperhelp. The "?" facility
was unique in the IDL syntax, since it could be immediately followed by a
character string (e.g. IDL>?ROUTINES ), and thus minimized the required
keystrokes. Note that any user-defined help procedure requires the use of at
least 3 characters, (1) the (at least) one-letter procedure name, (2) a comma,
and (3) a quotation mark, (e.g. IDL>h,'ROUTINES ).
For that reason, our group has always modified the MAN_PROC procedure so that
we could quickly get immediate help on any RSI or user-created procedure,e.g.
IDL>?REBIN or IDL>?MYPROC
But the hypertext help now claims the "?" facility, and it doesn't really need
it. The hypertext help is something that one normally only launches once in
a session and keeps as a background window until the IDL exit. (Or even
longer, since the hypertext help can be run outside of IDL.) And the "?"
facility no longer accepts any parameters.
--Wayne Landsman landsman@sorbet.gsfc.nasa.gov
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