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Re: [Gcl-devel] Questions about GCL's online help system


From: Camm Maguire
Subject: Re: [Gcl-devel] Questions about GCL's online help system
Date: 18 May 2004 15:17:35 -0400
User-agent: Gnus/5.09 (Gnus v5.9.0) Emacs/21.2

Greetings, and welcome to GCL!  Thanks for your interest and offer of
help. 

Quo peregrinatur grex <address@hidden> writes:

> Hello all,
> 
> I have some questions about GCL's online help.
> 
> I have two hosts running GCL-2.6.1 (OS = debian sarge), and
> the online help works differently for the two systems.
> 
> On one host,
> 
> > (help 'setf)
> 
> prints a bunch of information from the html help files
> located under /usr/share/doc/gcl-doc/gcl/*, and on the
> other host,
> 
> (help 'setf)
> 
> prints just
> 
> ---------------------------------------------------------------
> SETF                                   [Special form and Macro]
> ---------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> [I've shortened the line lengths to make this easier to fit on
> a screen, but modulo that, those are the three lines printed.]
> 
> On both systems, 'gcl', 'gcl-doc', and 'gclcvs-doc' packages are
> installed.  (The 'gcl' and 'gcl-doc' package versions are both
> 2.6.1-37, so I believe the 'gclcvs-doc' package is ignored in
> this case.)
> 

This must be a file installation problem, no?  Please check the
variable  si::*info-paths* and the contents of the directories listed
therein. 

> [question 1]
> How does GCL decide whether or not to use the installed HTML
> documentation under /usr/share/doc/gcl-doc/gcl/* ?
> 

GCL currently parses only info, not html.  The html and info are
generated from the same source, texinfo.

> [question 2]
> What is the definitive source of information on the Lisp forms
> supported by GCL?  The GNU Info pages?  The html pages in the
> Debian 'gcl-doc' package?  In other words, to add new documentation,
> where (in what part of the CVS checkout tree) do you add it?
> 

In the info/ directory, the various *.texi files are the documentation
origin.  At some point we should also check/integrate documentation
strings which may be available, if this is not already done.

> [question 3]
> Who is the current maintainer for the user-doc part of GCL?
> I would like to volunteer to help whoever is currently working
> on GCL's user-oriented documentation, to make it even better.
> (I'm a teacher, and I'd like to improve the docs so that our
> students can use GCL instead of CLisp...)
> 

We have no one specifically designated for documentation -- usually
we update it only as we add new functionality.  It would be great to
give it an overhaul.  If you would like to volunteer, I would like to
support you in any way I can. Perhaps we can go through a few rounds,
and once we agree on a process, we can add you as a GCL developer with
write access to the CVS source on savannah.  Please keep in mind that
the large document is supposed to be a direct translation of the ANSI
hyperspec, though there may remain a few technical issues with the
translation.  The gcl-si appears to be taken from the original kcl
docs.  Someone posted here recently a copy of the original kcl report
they found on the net.  We needs to find out if we are able to merge
this into LGPL docs.  Lastly, the gcl-tk was added last solely for the
tk interface, of course.  

One notable omission is sockets, as we've recently found out.  It is
an area also likely to change somewhat in the near future.

Take care,

> Thanks kindly,
> Lou Glassy (aka 'grex')
> 
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Gcl-devel mailing list
> address@hidden
> http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gcl-devel
> 
> 
> 

-- 
Camm Maguire                                            address@hidden
==========================================================================
"The earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens."  --  Baha'u'llah




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