From rossini@u.washington.edu  Wed Dec 11 03:53:02 2002
From: rossini@u.washington.edu (A.J. Rossini)
Date: Wed Dec 11 03:53:02 2002
Subject: [Rd] Flat documentation?
In-Reply-To: <146dvukntaqmcpr1at7hl0i5vks3fvigh8@4ax.com>
References: <A8877251964B294BAB5BA1FC58B43FED025B4436@molly.tas.csiro.au>
 <871y4puyz9.fsf@jeeves.blindglobe.net>
 <146dvukntaqmcpr1at7hl0i5vks3fvigh8@4ax.com>
Message-ID: <87u1hlxo5h.fsf@jeeves.blindglobe.net>

>>>>> "duncan" == Duncan Murdoch <dmurdoch@pair.com> writes:

    duncan> I don't know how much these flat files should participate
    duncan> in the overall R help system.  The more they show up like
    duncan> regular help topics the better, but that's going to impose
    duncan> constraints on what goes in them.  For example,
    duncan> cross-references or entries in the contents or index
    duncan> listings would be nice, but would need markup of some
    duncan> sort.

I'm not sure how indexing might go.

One thought would be to do similar to the bioconductor Sweave files,
but completely in the opposite direction.

I.e. 

DHT (dumb help text) files could be put into an appropriate directory,
and then we could have a DHT.browser() function that would cat out,
using a pager, a copy of the file, or without prompting, give a list
of packages and topics for each package covered by DHT files.

Then, you'd stick 2 lines of formatting at the topic, ala the SWeave
vignettes, for indexing and referencing stuff.

I'd call it illiterate statistical programming, just to complete the
notion that they are complete opposites from the vignettes.

On re-reading the above, I think I need more sleep and less stress;
this isn't one of my better ideas...

best,
-tony

-- 
A.J. Rossini				Rsrch. Asst. Prof. of Biostatistics
U. of Washington Biostatistics		rossini@u.washington.edu	
FHCRC/SCHARP/HIV Vaccine Trials Net	rossini@scharp.org
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[Rd] Flat documentation?
A.J. Rossini