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Usenet 1994 January
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volume8
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gnuplot1.10A
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part07
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help
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README
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1989-09-09
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Hello,
This is the first distribution of any sort out of me. This program,
I believe, will find genuine use on almost all machines, versions of
UN*X, and environments. This system implements a VMS-like help facility
for any and all commands, procedures, etc.
I hereby release this code into the public domain. Please don't remove
the file headers that have my name in them, and don't make profit with
this system. Rather, customize it to your own local uses and
TEACH PEOPLE UN*X WITH THIS SYSTEM!!!
This later goal is by FAR more important to me than some stupid copyright
notice that could be deleted by anyone anyway. Also, I will not be libel
for any damages done to your system, period. AS IS WHERE IS is the motto.
This system is NOT intended to replace "man(1)" but rather to supplement
the information in the manual pages to first time users. For instance,
here at OSU, we use this system on the undergraduate machine to try and
guide the freshman through the gore of printing, editors, etc. rather
than having a professor do it. Also, most of the more often used
commands have their manual pages ripped up and stuffed into this format
to aid the student (you must admit that "help" is a more natural thing
to type when in need as a first time UN*X user than is "man").
Because we have 43 hosts here in the Computer and Information Sciences
department, all running some flavor of UN*X, a LARGE amount of time
was taken to make this as simple and portable as possible. Therefore,
"curses(3)" was not used (not all systems support it in the same way
or even have it in a few cases). Also things like ISAM were not used
(portability problems). This implies that this package does not have
the 'spiffyness' that some of you may be looking for.
In short, this is not going to impress the boss, code-wise. Rather, the
content of the help directorys (the actual text of the various help
messages) are what should be devoted a fair amount of time. This is also
where this system shines. True flexibility is achieved by the "DIR" files
within this system. They allow you to setup acronyms for traversing the
directory tree of "TEXT" files. This allows you to have help topics like
"printing a file" or "using the printer in the basement" both point to
the help screen on using the "lp" command. This file also allows SYS5
sites to use any length 'help file' name and still map it into the small
file name SYS5 allows you (14 characters?).
Hidden aliases can also be used. This allows you to also have such things
as "lp" be a 'help topic' as in the previous paragraph. This makes the
system less painful for those who really do know UN*X, but have forgotten
one simple flag on "_XXXX_".
These are the instructions to compile "help(L)":
1. Edit the file "global.h" and change the #define's
for ROOTDIR, HELPFILE, and DIRFILE to be locally
acceptable.
2. Edit the file "Makefile" and fix the definitions of BIN, HELPDIR,
HELPOWN, and HELPGRP so that "make install" will work.
3. Type "make all".
4. IF the make completes, play around with it for a while
and make sure it works...
5. Type "make install". This will install a copy of our help
files, complete with typo's & bad grammar. Most of the
files were typed in by various volunteers here within
the university. You may want to look at them as an
example, you may want to delete them, who knows...
I bet you think you are done... HA! HA! HA! That's a computer joke!
You are just barely beginning. Now comes the fun part. :-)
6. Type "cd <ROOTDIR>".
7. Start making your "./TEXT" and "./DIR" files. The examples
in this shell archive should prove adequate for examples.
For a subtopic, type "mkdir <subtopic>" and then
"cd <subtopic>" and goto step 7.
If you have any questions or further enhancements (or help subtrees :-),
please e-mail them to me. I really would like to hear how this thing
fairs in the big wide world...
Roland Stolfa
Computing and Information Sciences Department
Oklahoma State University
219 Math Sciences Building
Stillwater OK 74078
rjs@a.cs.okstate.edu