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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
-