Fernando Pujaico Rivera <trucomanx> said on comment #17:
< [...]

>  And statistics work the same way for me, but bsltl not.
> [..]

Yes, this only works for functions that exist in Mathworks toolboxes. For example, it will "fail" for fftconvn, a function from the Octave image package, because it is not on the Mathworks image toolbox. This is why I said "I'll guess that new users are more likely to be faced with this issue [...] when dealing with functions from one of the Matlab toolboxes".

Fernando Pujaico Rivera <trucomanx> said on comment #18:

> [...]
> I think that to install and load is a simple job, for people that know that the commands exist,
> but to people that only found a library by your characteristics, and is through of this search that begin in octave, I know that is a great help.
> [...]

Which is why I said "this boils down to: who's the target audience for the index page of a package?". The audience you are targeting, people that "found a library by your characteristics, and is through of this search that begin in octave" is not the target. The target audience are Octave users that are looking for a package that does something specific. In that case, this page should describe briefly what the package does, and a link for further documentation (which may include install and load instructions).

If the target audience is someone that has never used Octave before, and you're assuming that someone will start to use Octave because of the package index page, there are a lot of other things that will need to be explained.

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Just my opinion. I think Julien is right that if Octave users are having trouble installing and loading packages, then we need to fix that other documentation and making it much easier to find.

I think that to install and load is a simple job, for people that know that the commands exist,

but to people that only found a library by your characteristics, and is through of this search that begin in octave, I know that is a great help.

I work as a programmer writing some things to PhD students of agriculture and related sciences, and see important this help.

unfortunately I see the same problem in electrical engineering people who only knew matlab and windows.

I will just throw a very different opinion for your consideration.  I don't think that a package index page should have install and load instructions.

Installing and loading package is a pretty standard and simple job.  So standard and simple that makes install and load instructions only useful for very new Octave users.  Anyone else will already know it so adding this instructions will increase cognitive load of the page.  Note that just because one already knows the information in those info boxes, it doesn't mean there is no cost associated.  The info in the boxes still needs to recognized so one knows it can be ignored.  This would make the page worse for Octave users.

There is also one other reason why even recent users will already now about pkg.  Without wanting to downplay the importance of the many Forge packages, I'll guess that new users are more likely to be faced with this issue (install and loading a package) when dealing with functions from one of the Matlab toolboxes. In such case, Octave will already show the user a error message reminding the user first to install (maybe we should show how to actually install a package instead of just noting is not installed?), and then to load the package:

octave:1> pkg uninstall statistics

octave:2> pdist
warning: the 'pdist' function belongs to the statistics package from Octave Forge
which seems to not be installed in your system.

Please read <http://www.octave.org/missing.html> to learn how you can
contribute missing functionality.
warning: called from
    __unimplemented__ at line 524 column 5
error: 'pdist' undefined near line 1 column 1

octave:2> pkg install -forge statistics
For information about changes from previous versions of the statistics package, run 'news statistics'.

octave:3> pdist
warning: the 'pdist' function belongs to the statistics package from Octave Forge
which you have installed but not loaded.  To load the package, run 'pkg
load statistics' from the Octave prompt.

Please read <http://www.octave.org/missing.html> to learn how you can
contribute missing functionality.
warning: called from
    __unimplemented__ at line 524 column 5
error: 'pdist' undefined near line 1 column 1

I'd argue that this boils down to: who's the target audience for the index page of a package? Is it for an Octave user (which will already know about pkg) to gain information about the package? Or is it for new Octave users that will start using it? These instructions are only useful for the later and will just be noise for others.

PS: How can I  post message with source code with "rich markup"? like the comment #4

Feel free to use / generalize the text from the section “Installation” in https://sourceforge.net/p/octave/interval/ci/default/tree/doc/chapter/getting-started.texinfo for the FAQ page.

Unfortunately, I don't have the time to do it myself before the end of month.

As a "minimal" content for the Octave Forge style I would suggest

• Install from the network: `pkg install -forge ...`

• Load the package before use: `pkg load ...`

• See (link to some appropriate place) for more information.

I'm not a big fan of the "loading" section on the right.

First, because any user trying to use a function from an unloaded package gets an error message indicating that he must use "pkg load ..." first.

Second, because it don't find it very elegant...

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I would like to propose an alternative:

• Add only one new subsection, with both heading and content configurable through options.

• Make this section optional: it the content option field is empty, the section is not displayed at all.

• For the Octave Forge option set, use "Getting started" as a title and provide a minimal content made of link to some other page on the Octave Forge website.

The last point is important: it means that if we want to modify the "Getting started" instructions for Octave Forge packages, we don't have to re-generate to documentation of all Octave Forge packages.

For the link to "offline installation methods", perhaps would it be better to provide a direct link to

http://www.gnu.org/software/octave/doc/interpreter/Installing-and-Removing-Packages.html#Installing-and-Removing-Packages

Your patch is only going to work if the package is hosted on Octave Forge due to the -forge option in the install box.

I'd suggest to configure the commands with get_html_options (…). The default template should produce the install command:

pkg install pkgname-x.y.z.tar.gz

The “octave-forge” template should produce the install command:

pkg install -forge pkgname

You probably have to use placeholders like %name, %version, and %extension.

I like that proposal. It fixes the most common issue for new users.

On the other side, package installation might become more complicated than that, so we should add a link (next to the install instructions) to a new page on Octave Forge that explains this in greater details (the big orange box at http://octave.sourceforge.net/ is insufficient as well).

- Users of the Octave windows installer don't have to install certain packages
- In several GNU distributions it is preferred to use the redistributed version of the package (e. g. Debian, Fedora, …)
- When the workstation is not connected to the internet, the user might want to fall back to manual download and install w/o the -forge option
- (and so on)

I like to propose show the installation/loading commands in the index page of reference manual.
I send adjoint a diff file with the modification.

I think that this is important, given that the octave packages are unloaded by default.
And many people don't know how make this in the command line.

The reference manual is the first information found in the search of web.

You can see an example of this modification in the next site.

http://nongnu.org/bsltl/bsltl_refman/bsltl/index.html