bugGNU Octave - Bugs: bug #44529, make doc function aware of package...

 
 

bug #44529: make doc function aware of package documentation files

Submitter:  Avinoam Kalma <avinoam>
Submitted:  Thu 12 Mar 2015 10:51:05 PM UTC
   
 
Category:  Octave Function Severity:  3 - Normal
Priority:  5 - Normal Item Group:  Incorrect Result
Status:  Confirmed Assigned to:  None
Originator Name:  Avinoam Open/Closed:  * Open
Release:  * 4.2.0 Operating System:  * Microsoft Windows
Fixed Release:  None Planned Release:  None
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Sat 19 Jan 2019 02:11:16 AM UTC, comment #8: 

Bringing discussion from bug #55509 over here.

QHelp is the native format for the doc browser in Qt Octave, so maybe we could add support to pkg() and doc() for that (and possibly other formats).

If you have a .qch QHelp format file, it's currently not too hard to add it to the doc browser, by using Octave's internal _octave_link_register_doc_ function.

Packages' QHelp files should probably be generated by the packages themselves at package distribution creation time. That way users don't have to have the Qt development tools set up on their machines just to install packages or view their doco. (Especially on Windows; that sounds like a pain.)

I've hacked together some code to generate QHelp for my Chrono package, as an example: https://github.com/apjanke/octave-addons-chrono/tree/master/doc.

Right now, Chrono is using a PKG_ADD/PKG_DEL kludge to register its QHelp file. It seems to work; see GIF: https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/download.php?file_id=46013

We could extend the pkg metadata definition files to allow them to declare a "QHelpFiles: " list (and maybe other help file formats), and have pkg register them automatically during the "pkg load" process.

Andrew Janke <apjanke>
Sat 24 Dec 2016 07:47:31 AM UTC, comment #7: 

Retagging release from 4.0.0 to 4.2.0.

Avinoam Kalma <avinoam>
Group Member
Fri 23 Dec 2016 09:16:32 PM UTC, comment #6: 

This issue is still the same with Octave 4.2.0. (mxe-build on WinXP)

Hartmut <hardy>
Tue 02 Jun 2015 04:34:12 PM UTC, comment #5: 

Retagging release from 4.0.0-rc1 to 4.0.0.

John W. Eaton <jwe>
Group administrator
Sat 14 Mar 2015 12:39:49 AM UTC, comment #4: 

The error message from the info program ("dir: No such file or directory") is easy enough to work around by passing the --file option. But that doesn't help in Windows because the info program can't run in the GUI terminal. So basically yes, the only way to make this work would be to allow the info file to be given to the GUI doc browser.

That sounds like a bigger design change that should probably wait until later.

The optim package maintainer could make optim_doc call out to the GUI directly if desired, but I think it would be better to solve this in some way that all packages can benefit from.

Mike Miller <mtmiller>
Group Member
Fri 13 Mar 2015 02:46:52 PM UTC, comment #3: 

Could the octave doc function be extended to support a filename and keyword option - optim_doc would then be a wrapper for providing to the doc function to specify the file to look in, and then would handle use of the GUI browser.

John Donoghue <lostbard>
Group Member
Fri 13 Mar 2015 01:39:25 PM UTC, comment #2: 

I agree with John. I think this may fall into a bigger scope of how to work with packages that provide an Info format user manual. If the info program can run in the Windows GUI, feel free to provide a patch to make this work. But otherwise I think this is a wishlist about making package docs available to the GUI doc browser.

Mike Miller <mtmiller>
Group Member
Fri 13 Mar 2015 12:04:39 PM UTC, comment #1: 

Works with octave on CLI mode, just not GUI mode.

Perhaps it can also be modified to use the documentation browser when in GUI mode.

John Donoghue <lostbard>
Group Member
Thu 12 Mar 2015 10:51:05 PM UTC, original submission:  


Running MXE-octave in Win7, after installing optim


>> pkg load optim
>> optim_doc ()
info: dir: No such file or directory
error: info program `info' returned error code 1
error: called from
    optim_doc at line 74 column 7


The problem is with the "info.exe" program

Avinoam Kalma <avinoam>
Group Member

 

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    Follow 9 latest changes.

    Date Changed by Updated Field Previous Value => Replaced by
    2021-07-25 mmuetzel Dependencies- bugs #60962 is dependent
    2019-01-20 siko1056 Dependencies- bugs #45852 is dependent
    2019-01-19 mtmiller Carbon-CopyRemoved 80942 -
    2017-08-13 jwe CategoryDocumentation Octave Function
    2017-08-13 jwe CategoryOctave Package Documentation
        Summaryproblem with optim_doc in MXE-Octave make doc function aware of package documentation files
    2016-12-24 avinoam Release4.0.0 4.2.0
    2015-06-02 jwe Release4.0.0-rc1 4.0.0
    2015-03-13 lostbard StatusNone Confirmed

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