oaf%pluto%vmsfo.UUCP@NAC.NO (Ole Asbjorn Fadum) (05/22/91)
Hi I wonder if someone work's with some kind of online help ? How is the easist way of making online help inside IV ? ======================================================================== Ole Asbjorn Fadum (oaf@vingmed.no) Vingmed Sound A/S P.O.Box 141 N-3191 Horten NORWAY Phone +47 33 42 132 FAX +47 33 45 686
rsw@cs.brown.EDU (Bob Weiner) (05/24/91)
In article <9105211847.AA19496@vingmed.no> oaf%pluto%vmsfo.UUCP@NAC.NO (Ole Asbjorn Fadum) writes: > Hi > > I wonder if someone work's with some kind of online help ? How is the > easist way of making online help inside IV ? > > Such a capability would be much easier to provide and probably more useful if the key developers of Interviews move the documentation of classes from their set of manual pages, into the actual code. Then extractor programs could be used to produce in context online help and the associated text for use in the man pages. I think a large number of people would like this. It is always disconcerting to come upon code without a thread of documentation inline. I've often wondered where people pick up such a skill. Most posters to comp.sources.* have mastered it quite nicely. Since this is a simple change which large potential benefit, I hope it will be considered for the next release. Bob -- Bob Weiner rsw@cs.brown.edu
linton@marktwain.rad.sgi.com (Mark Linton) (05/28/91)
In article <RSW.91May23195448@tahiti.cs.brown.EDU>, rsw@cs.brown.EDU (Bob Weiner) writes: |> In article <9105211847.AA19496@vingmed.no> oaf%pluto%vmsfo.UUCP@NAC.NO (Ole Asbjorn Fadum) writes: |> |> > Hi |> > |> > I wonder if someone work's with some kind of online help ? How is the |> > easist way of making online help inside IV ? |> > |> > |> |> Such a capability would be much easier to provide and probably more |> useful if the key developers of Interviews move the documentation of |> classes from their set of manual pages, into the actual code. Then |> extractor programs could be used to produce in context online help and |> the associated text for use in the man pages. |> |> I think a large number of people would like this. It is always |> disconcerting to come upon code without a thread of documentation |> inline. I've often wondered where people pick up such a skill. Most |> posters to comp.sources.* have mastered it quite nicely. Online help is a good thing. Comments in code can be good. However, extracting online help from code comments is not an appropriate strategy. Users need to know how to use software, both through examples and precise semantics. Code comments are better reserved for implementation notes, and as such are not intended for users. One could try to keep user-level information in .h files, but we have found that is too cumbersome given the current build technology (make). It is also important for user documentation to be well-formatted; this is hard to derive automatically from source code. What would be nice is a hypertext tool that allowed one to navigate between class interfaces (.h files) and associated semantics/examples (manual).
tom@ssd.csd.harris.com (Tom Horsley) (05/28/91)
For a project I am working on, I wrote a C++ class to access info files
(info as in the Gnuemacs texinfo). Once I had the engine to access info
files, it was just a matter of a day or so to subclass the texteditor to
make a "hypertexteditor" which can display an info node, highlighting the
links to other nodes, and letting you click on a link to transfer to a
different node. Because the texinfo stuff allows you to generate nicely
formatted hardcopy with TeX and reasonably formatted online documents with
makeinfo, it is a nice combination to use for online help since the entire
manual can also be available online. You can make context sensitive help by
building in knowledge of info node names into your application (especially
into the error processing code).
--
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