path: root/pkg/system/doc/help.hlp

.help help Oct01 system
.ih
NAME
help -- print online documentation for the named modules or packages
.ih
USAGE
help [template]
.ih
PARAMETERS
.ls template
A string listing the modules or packages for which help is desired.
Each list element may be a simple name or a pattern matching template.
Abbreviations are permitted.  If \fItemplate\fR is omitted a long format
menu will be printed for the current package, listing each task (or
subpackage) and describing briefly what it is.
.le
.ls file_template = no
If this switch is set the template is interpreted as a filename matching
template, and all help blocks found in the named files are output.  The help
database is not searched, hence manual pages can be printed or documents
may be formatted without entering the files into a help database.
In other words, "help file.hlp fi+" makes it possible to use \fIhelp\fR as
a conventional text formatter.
.le
.ls all = no
Print help for all help modules matching \fItemplate\fR, rather than only the
first one found.
.le
.ls parameter = "all"
If the value of this parameter is not "all", only the help text
for the given parameter will be printed.
.le
.ls section = "all"
If the value of this parameter is not "all", only the help text for the
given section (e.g. "usage", "description", "examples") will be printed.
.le
.ls option = help
The option parameter specifies the type of help desired, chosen from
the following:
.ls help
Print the full help block for the named module.
.le
.ls source
Print the source code for the module (which often contains additional
detailed comments).
.le
.ls sysdoc
Print the technical system documentation for the named module.
.le
.ls directory
Print a directory of all help blocks available for the named package.
.le
.ls alldoc
Print all help blocks in the file containing the help block for
the named procedure (i.e., both the user and system documentation).
.le
.ls files
Print the names of all help files associated with the named modules or
packages.
.le
.ls summary
Print only the titles and sizes of help blocks in referenced help files.
The contents of the blocks are skipped.  Titles are printed for \fIall\fR
help blocks found in the file containing the help block for the named module.
.le
.le
.ls page = yes
Pause after every page of output text.  Turning this off for large documents
speeds up output considerably.
.le
.ls nlpp = 59
The number of lines per page if output is redirected, e.g., to \fIlprint\fR.
.le
.ls lmargin = 1
Left margin on output.
.le
.ls rmargin = 72
Right margin on output.
.le
.ls search = no
If enabled the 
.hr #l_template template
is interpreted as a search string and the task
is started with the search panel open with the results of the search.  The
.hr #l_file_template file_template
parameter is ignored with search turned on.
.le
.ls home = ""
The home page for the task.  If not set and no 
.hr #l_template template
is specified
the task will start with the online help in the main window, otherwise it
may be set to a filename to be displayed when the task starts.  This file
may contain a text help block which will be formatted before display,  or
it may be a valid HTML file.  See below for a description of the format of
a homepage file which provides links to tasks.
.le
.ls printer = "printer"
Default hardcopy printer name. If the \fIvalue\fR of the parameter is the
reserved string "printer", the actual device is the value of the CL
environment variable \fIprinter\fR.
.le
.ls showtype = no
Add task-type suffix in package menus?
.le
.ls quickref = "uparm$quick.ref"
Name of the quick-reference file used for searching.  This file is created
the first time the task is run in GUI mode or whenever it doesn't exist, 
or when any help database file has been updated.
.le
.ls uifname = "lib$scr/help.gui"
The user interface file.   This file is what defines the look and behavior
of all the graphical user interface elements.   Experts may create variants
of this file.
.le
.ls helpdb = "helpdb"
The filename of the help database to be searched.  If the \fIvalue\fR of the
parameter is the reserved string "helpdb", the actual filename is the value
of the CL environment variable \fIhelpdb\fR.
.le
.ls device = "terminal"
Output device if the standard output is not redirected.  Allowable values
include:
.ls terminal
If the \fIvalue\fR of
the parameter is the reserved string "terminal",  the actual device name is
the value of the CL environment variable \fIterminal\fR.  
.le
.ls text
Output the formatted help page as plain text.
.le
.ls gui
Invoke the GUI for browsing the help system.  This option will only work if
the \fIstdgraph\fR environment variable is set the \fIxgterm\fR, and the
user is running IRAF from an \fIXGterm\fR window.
.le
.ls html
Output the formatted help page as HTML text.
.le
.ls ps (or postscript)
Output the formatted help page as postscript.
.le
.le
.ih
BASIC USAGE
Despite the complex appearing hidden parameters, \fBhelp\fR is easy to use
for simple tasks.  \fBHelp\fR is most commonly used to get help on the current
package, and to get help on a program named in a CL menu.  To get help on
the current package one need only type \fBhelp\fR without any arguments.
For example, if the current package is \fBplot\fR, the command and its output
might appear as follows:

.nf
	pl> help
		contour - Make a contour plot of an image
		  graph - Graph one or more image sections or lists
		   pcol - Plot a column of an image
		  pcols - Plot the average of a range of image columns
		   prow - Plot a line (row) of an image
		  prows - Plot the average of a range of image lines
		surface - Make a surface plot of an image
	pl>
.fi

To get help on a module one supplies the module name as an argument,

	pl> help graph

and the manual page for the \fBplot.graph\fR program will be printed on the
terminal.  To get a hardcopy of the manual page on the printer, the output
may be redirected to the line printer, as follows:

	pl> help graph | lprint
.ih
DESCRIPTION
The function of the \fBhelp\fR program is to perform a depth first search
of the help database \fIhelpdb\fR, printing help for all packages and modules
matching the template.  By default the standard IRAF help database is searched,
but any other help database may be searched if desired.  A help database is
precompiled with the \fBmkhelpdb\fR program to speed up runtime searches for
help modules.  The standard IRAF help database contains the documentation and
source for all CL programs and system and math library procedures installed
in IRAF.

A help template is a string type parameter to the CL.  The form of a template
is a list of patterns delimited by commas, i.e.,

	"pattern1, pattern2, ..., patternN"

The form of a pattern is

	package_pattern.module_pattern

If the "." is omitted \fImodule_pattern\fR is assumed.  The standard pattern
matching meta-characters, i.e., "*?[]", are permitted in patterns.
Simple patterns are assumed to be abbreviations.

.ih
GUI OPERATION

The GUI component of the task is a front-end to the IRAF 
.hr system.help \fBhelp\fR
task which provides on-the-fly conversion of help documents to HTML for
presentation in the GUI or formatted PostScript for hardcopy.  
The GUI is started by setting the 
.hr #l_device \fIdevice\fR
parameter to the special value \fIgui\fR, it is only available when using
an XGterm window to start IRAF and assuming the \fIstdgraph\fR environment
variable is set to \fRxgterm\fR.

Help pages may be loaded on the command line, through use of a
file browser, or by navigating the help databases using a familiar CL
package menu scheme.   It also features a search capability similar to the 
.hr system.references \fBreferences\fR
task and a complete history mechanism. 

When invoked with no command line arguments the task starts as a browser
and the user is presented with a GUI that has the toplevel CL package menu
in the upper navigation window.  The main display window below will contain
any help page specified in the 
.hr #l_template template
parameter or loaded on
the command line by specifying the 
.hr #l_template template
and 
.hr #l_file_template file_template
parameters. If the 
.hr #l_search search
parameter is enabled the 
.hr #l_template template
is taken to be a search phrase and the database is searched for tasks
matching the keyword and the GUI will appear with the search panel mapped
so the user can select the task help to
view.  When no 
.hr #l_template template
is given the main display window will start with the page specified by the 
.hr #l_home home
parameter, this can be a user-defined HTML file giving links to specific tasks
(see below for details) or if 
.hr #l_home home
is empty the display will contain the online help for the task.

The first time the task is run, or whenever the help database is updated,
a quick reference file (specified by the task 
.hr #l_quickref quickref 
parameter) and package menu file will be created in the user's \fIuparm\fR
directory to speed up help searching and subsequent startups of the task.

.ih
NAVIGATING THE HELP SYSTEM
When run as a GUI browser \fIHELP\fR works very much like any WWW browser.
The top panel is a list widget that will always contain a CL package listing,
at startup this will be the toplevel \fI"Home"\fR package menu one would see
when first logging into the CL containing the core system packages, NOAO
package, and any site-specific external package, or in the case of starting
with a specific task it will be the parent package for the task.  Additionally,
system documents for the 
.hr os \fBos\fR
HSI routines and the 
.hr sys.imfort \fBimfort\fR
and
.hr math \fBmath\fR
interfaces will be available in the \fIHome\fR package although
these are programmatic interfaces and not tasks which can be executed.

New packages or task help pages are loaded by selecting an item from the 
package menu list using the left mouse button.  If the requested item is a 
package, the menu listing will change as though the package were loaded in
the CL, and the help display panel will contain a listing of the package
tasks with a one-line description for each task such as would be seen with 
a \fI"help <package>"\fR command using the standard task.  New items may then
be selected using either the menu list or links in the display panel.  If the
item is a task, the help page for the task will appear in the display panel.
In either case new pages may be selected from the menu listing.  

Specific help documents may also be requested by entering the task/package
name in the \fBTopic\fR text widget above the menu list.  As when selecting
from the package menu list, items selected this way will cause the menu
list to change to the package menu for the parent package if the item is a
task (displaying the help page in the display panel) or the package menu
if the item is a package (displaying the one-liner package listing in the
display panel).

Using the \fBBack\fR button will revert to the previous page in the history
list which will either be the previously loaded package or help page.
Similarly, selecting the \fBForward\fR button will move the next page further
down in the history list, either button will become insensitive when the 
end of the list on either end is reached.  Selecting the \fBUp\fR button will
cause the browser to immediately jump up the previous package, skipping 
over any help pages that were loaded in between.  The \fBHome\fR button will
cause the default homepage (either the user-defined page if specified by the
task \fIhome\fR parameter or the online help) to be displayed.  Browsing
in this way can also be done using the navigation menu created by hitting
the right mouse button while in the main display panel.

Users can also jump to specific pages in the history list using the
\fBHistory\fR button on the main menubar.   The right column of the menu
will indicate whether the item is a task, package, internal link or a text
file.  The history list is truncated at about 40 entries in the menu but
the user may work back incrementally by selecting the last item of the 
menu, after which the History button will display the previous 40 entries.
The history list may be cleared except for the current page by selecting
the \fIClear History\fR menu item.

.ih
BROWSING A HELP DOCUMENT
Once a help page is loaded the middle menubar above the display panel
will change to activate widgets based on the position within the history
list and options available for a particular page.  The left-most group
of buttons are the standard navigation buttons described above.
The middle group of buttons contains the \fBSections\fR and
\fBParameters\fR buttons which are used to browse within a help document.
The \fISections\fR button is a menu listing all of the sections found
within a help page, allowing the user to jump to a specific section
rather than scrolling through the entire document. The \fISections\fR
menu is also available using the middle mouse button from the
main display area.  The \fIParameters\fR button is similarly a menu
listing of all task parameter help sections found within the document.
Both or either of these buttons will become insensitive when no section
or parameter information is found in the document.

The right-most group of buttons represent the various help options available
for each page.  The default is to get the task help, however help pages
may have an associated \fBsource\fR file or \fBsysdoc\fR (e.g. if the task is
a CL script there may be a pointer to the script source itself, or a package
may have a general overview document listed as the system document).  Once
a help page is loaded these buttons will change become sensitive if that option
is available, simply select the button to view the option.  Selecting the
\fBFiles\fR button will bring up a panel listing all the files associated
with a particular help topic.  When a help topic is selected and an option is
defined but the file does not exist, the options button will display a yellow
diamond icon even if the button is insensitive, a green icon indicates the
currently selected option.  This feature may be disabled by selecting the
"Show missing files" item from the main menubar \fBOptions\fR menu.

.ih
SEARCHING
Searching the help database is done by selecting the \fBSearch\fR button
from the main menubar to bring up the search panel.  Users may then enter 
one or more keywords into the \fBTopic\fR field at the bottom of the panel
and initiate the search with either a carriage return or hitting the
\fISearch\fR button just beside it.  The panel will then show a list of all
tasks and packages which match the search phrase along with a one-line
description of the task.  Help pages may be displayed by selecting either the
task or package link with the left mouse button, in both case the package
menu list on the main help window will be updated to list the package
contents allowing other tasks from that package to be selected in the normal
way.

By default the exact phrase entered in the topic window will be used for the
search.  This can be relaxed by toggling the  "Require exact match" button
at the top of the panel.  For example,  to search for all tasks matching
\fIeither\fR the keyword "flat" or "field" turn off the exact match
toggle and the search will return not only tasks matching "flat field" but 
also any task description containing only one of the words such as the
VELVECT task which plots velocity \fIfield\fRs.

Within a help document itself one can search for a string by selecting
the \fBFind\fR button from the main menubar to bring up a panel used to
enter the search string.  When the text is entered the main display 
window will reposition itself and highlight the text found within the
document.  Searches can be repeated and will wrap around the document
automatically, searches can be done either forward or backward through
the text and may be case insensitive.

.ih
USER_DEFINED HOME PAGES
By default the \fIhelp\fR GUI will start with the online help page displayed
in the main help window.  The user can change this by setting the task
\fBhome\fR parameter to be a path to any valid file.  This file may be plain
text, a help document in LROFF format which will be converted to HTML for
display, or a native HTML document.

HTML files may contain URLs of the form
.nf
	\fB<a href=\fI[package.]task\fB>\fIurl_text\fB</a>
.fi

where \fIurl_text\fR is the text to appear in the window and the URL itself
consists of an optional package and task name delimited by a period.  For
example, to create a link to the 
.hr onedspec.splot \fBsplot\fR
task in a document one would use the URL
.nf
	\fB<a href=onedspec.splot>splot</a>\fR
.fi

In this way users can create a homepage which serves as a \fI"bookmark"\fR
file or index of shortcuts to the most commonly accessed help pages.

.ih
LOADING FILES
Text files may be loaded on the command line when starting the task by
specifying the filename and setting the
.hr #l_file_template file_template
task parameter.  The named file
will be searched for a \fI.help\fR LROFF directing indicating it contains
a help block that will be converted to HTML for display.  If no help
block is found the file will be displayed as-is, meaning existing
HTML documents can be loaded and will be formatted correctly.

Once the task is running users may load a file by selecting the \fBOpen
File...\fR menu item from the main menubar \fBFile\fR menu or the
right-mouse-button menu from within the main display area.  This will
open a file browser allowing users to change directories by using the
navigation buttons at the top of the panel, or selecting items from the
leftmost directory listing.  Selecting a file on the rightmost list will
cause it to be loaded and automatically formatted if it contains a help
block.  The file list may be filtered to select only those files matching
a particular template by changing the \fBFilter\fR box at the top of
the panel.  Filenames or directories may be entered directly using the
\fBSelection\fR box at the bottom of the panel.

.ih
SAVING FILES
Once a file has been loaded in the browser it may be saved to disk as 
either \fIsource\fR (i.e. the original LROFF file if that was converted
for the display, or whatever file is currently displayed regardless of
format), \fItext\fR to save formatted plain text such as that produced
by the standard \fBhelp\fR task, \fIHTML\fR to save the converted HTML
used in the display, or \fIPostScript\fR to save formatted PostScript of
the document such as that sent to the printer using the \fBPrint\fR 
button.  Not all options will be available depending on the format of the
input text, unavailable options will be insensitive in the GUI.

The \fBSave\fR panel is opened by selecting the \fBSave As...\fR menu
item from the  main menubar \fBFile\fR menu or the right-mouse-button
menu from within the main display area.   The file browser operates the
same as when loading images, the only difference is that file selection 
simply defines the filename to be used and does not cause the save to
occur automatically.  Users can overwrite existing files by selecting the
\fIOptions\fR toggle at the bottom of the panel.

.ih
HARDCOPY OUTPUT AND SAVING DISK FILES.
Help pages may be output to any configured IRAF printer by selecting the
main menubar \fBPrint\fR button to bring up the print panel.  Task help pages
will be converted to formatted PostScript and may be sent to either a
printer or saved to disk depending on the selection made in the printer 
panel.  If the printer name is set to the special value \fI"printer"\fR then
the device named by the CL \fIprinter\fR environment variable will be used.
When saving to disk files the default action is to save to a filename whose
name is the task name plus a ".ps" extension.  Either of these are changeable
within the GUI as is the default page size to be used when generating the
PostScript.

The main menubar \fBFile\fR button can also be used to bring up the file
browser in order to save the current document to disk.  Help pages may be
saved as either the origin LROFF source for the file, formatted text as you
would get from the standard help task, HTML as is displayed in the GUI, or
formatted PostScript.  The choice of formats is dictated by the type of file
being displayed (e.g. you cannot save PostScript of a program source).

.ih
LROFF DIRECTIVE EXTENSIONS FOR HTML
To better support HTML links within documents and to other help pages two
new directives have been added to the LROFF text formatter.  These are
\fB.hr\fR to specify a link (an HTML \fIHREF\fR directive) and \fB.hn\fR
to specify a name (an HTML \fINAME\fR directive).  The syntax for these are
as follows:
.nf

	\fB.hn\fI <name>\fR
	\fB.hr\fI <link> <text> \fR
.fi

where \fI<name>\fR is the destination name of an internal link, \fI<link>\fR
is the URL of the link to be created, and \fI<text>\fR is the text to be
displayed in the HTML.  The URL syntax is either a '#' character followed
by a destination name, a simple \fItask\fR name or \fIpackage\fR name,
or a \fIpackage.task\fR pair giving a more precise task.  For internal links
the current document is repositioned so the name is at the top of the display,
for task help links new help pages will be loaded in the browser.  

These directives are ignored when converting the LROFF to either formatted
plain text or PostScript.

.hn examples_target
.ih
GUI EXAMPLES
1) Start \fIhelp\fR as a GUI browser:
.nf

	cl> help dev=gui
.fi

2) Begin by searching for the phrase 'gauss', tasks and packages may be
selected from the search panel which will appear when the task starts:
.nf

	cl> help gauss dev=gui search+
.fi

3) Load an LROFF help page in the browser at startup
.nf

	cl> help mytask.hlp dev=gui file+
.fi

.ih
EXAMPLES

1. Print the help text for the program \fIdelete\fR in the package
\fIsystem\fR (output will be directed to the terminal):

.nf
	cl> help system.delete
or
	cl> help delete
or
	cl> help del
.fi

2. Print the help text on the line printer:
.nf

	cl> help delete | lprint
.fi

3. Print help for the current package:
.nf

	cl> help
.fi

4. Print the usage section of all modules in the package \fBimages\fR:
.nf

	cl> help images.* section=usage
.fi

5. Print a directory of all help blocks in the packages \fBclpackage\fR
and \fBclio\fR (and any others whose names begin with the string "cl"):
.nf

	cl> help cl* op=dir
.fi

6. Print a directory of each package in the database (useful for getting an
overview of the contents of a help database):
.nf

	cl> help * op=dir
.fi

7. Print the source for all of the string utilities in the system library
package \fBfmtio\fR:
.nf

	cl> help fmtio.str* op=source
.fi

8. Find all tasks that delete something:
.nf

	cl> help * | match delete
.fi

9. Print the manual pages for the \fIhelp\fR and \fIlprint\fR tasks on the
default printer device:
.nf

	cl> help help,lprint | lpr
.fi

10. Capture the manual page for task \fIhedit\fR in a text file, in a form
suitable for printing on any device.
.nf

	cl> help hedit dev=text > hedit.txt
.fi

11. Print the manual page for task \fIhedit\fR as a Postscript file. 
.nf

	cl> help hedit dev=ps | lprint
.fi

.ih
BUGS
On some systems, typing the next command keystroke before the end-of-page
prompt is printed may result in the character being echoed (messing up the
output) and then ignored when raw mode is enabled for the prompt.

.ih
SEE ALSO
.hr system.references references
,
.hr system.phelp phelp
,
.hr system.mkhelpdb mkhelpdb
,
.hr system.hdbexamine hdbexamine
,
.hr system.mkmanpage mkmanpage
,
.hr system.lroff lroff
, the online task help documents.
.endhelp