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R-alpha: help files of base package

2 messages · Friedrich Leisch, Peter Dalgaard

#
[this message bounced, because it had 'help'
		 at beginning of Subject.  Now sent as "approved". -- MM]

I'm not happy at all with the html and latex version of the base help
files, because presenting (currently) 320 files in alphabetic order is
not a good way for unexperienced users.

I'm thinking about introducing a new command like \category or
whatever to split the help files up into parts like


graphics commands
random numbers
linear models
input/output
...


such that we can organize things a little bit. this way we could also
have a concise index of ALL functions available that is still
helpfull. 

somthing like the categories list in the R-minus help window ...

what do you think?

how to organize such a thing (besides providing the technical means)?

fritz
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#
Friedrich Leisch <Friedrich.Leisch@ci.tuwien.ac.at> writes:
You're not alone... but I'm afraid that this is something very
difficult to do right. Some things are easy, i.e. factor out graphics
functions and linear models, but other things might be difficult to
structure right, e.g. what goes in a "core" part? arithmetic?
programming constructs? etc.
I think we need to think for a while and try some things and see how
they work. One technical means that I've been wanting is a way to
extract a mini-manual to go with the reduced curriculum in my medical
PhD course. (Or maybe it's there already and I just didn't have the
time to find out?)