function package help text
by Allin Cottrell
Hello function-package writers,
I've noticed recently that while the help text for some function
packages looks fine, the help for some others looks like sh*t in
what I regard as a reasonably wide help window. This seems to stem
from some package writers resizing the help editing window to some
"excessive" width -- so that people viewing the help in a narrower
window see lots of (seemingly) arbitrarily broken lines.
Some of you may have noticed that in CVS of a few weeks ago I placed
a limit of 78 characters per line on package help text. Ignacio
certainly noticed this, and pointed out that it was difficult to
comply with the new restriction since the help text area in the
function package window didn't give the user any idea of how wide
the lines were, so one might have to go back and forth a number of
times before managing to comply with the new limit.
[Before proceeding, let me point out that there are good reasons for
a line-length limit: see, for example,
http://baymard.com/blog/line-length-readability ]
I accept Ignacio's point, so in current git there's a new mechanism
in place. To edit a package's plain-text help you now click the Edit
button (lined up with "Help") in the package editor dialog. This
gives you a text editor window which has the usual and expected
text-editing controls (copy, paste, undo, redo, which were not
available previously), and which has a fixed maximum width (which
should roughly correspond to 78 characters).
So (hopefully) now if you create excessively long lines you'll see
the same broken mess that others will see when they try to read your
help text in a text window 78 characters wide!
Please, I don't mean for this to be adversarial (even if I phrased
it a little sharply). We definitely value contributed function
packages. We just want your work to be as easily usable as possible
for as many gretl users as possible, and that requires that the help
text be properly legible in a window of moderate width.
Allin
10 years
gretl crash - empty sub lists
by Artur T.
Dear all,
the following code using the gretl cvs from 29.9.2015 on Win7 results in a
crash:
<gretl>
clear
set echo off
set messages off
open denmark.gdt
list ylist = LRM LRY IBO
list xlist = IDE
# Works
list lall = ylist(0 to -4) xlist(0 to -4)
lall
#Crash of xlist is "null"
list xlist = null
list lall = ylist(0 to -4) xlist(0 to -4)
lall
<\gretl>
Artur
10 years
transition to git
by Allin Cottrell
I've established a git repository for gretl on sourceforge, synced
with CVS as of this evening.
The CVS repository is still there at present as an insurance policy,
but it shouldn't be used for commits.
There's a brief "survival guide" at
http://ricardo.ecn.wfu.edu/~cottrell/gretl-git-basics.html
with info an accessing the repository and translation from cvs
commands to git ones for basic operations.
I don't suppose this needs saying, but of course feel free to ask
questions here in case of problems. One point to note is that it'll
take the sourceforge git engine a while to process all the
information just dumped on it. You're likely to see a spinner
with "Repo status: analyzing..." if you visit the web interface to
gretl git, and that might not be finished until tomorrow.
Allin
10 years
Missing examples: improving Gretl documentation
by Henrique Andrade
Dear Gretl Team,
I'm restarting to write the "missing" examples for Gretl functions and
commands (please take a look at this thread
http://lists.wfu.edu/pipermail/gretl-devel/2012-November/004088.html) and I
would like to hear from you if the following examples fit our "quality
standard" (if yes I will edit the XML files in CVS):
<hansl>
# Missing examples
### colname ###
matrix A = { 11, 23, 13 ; 54, 15, 46 }
colnames(A, "Col_A Col_B Col_C")
string name = colname(A, 3)
print name
### nlines ###
string web_page = readfile("http://gretl.sourceforge.net/")
scalar number = nlines(web_page)
print number
### readfile ###
string web_page = readfile("http://gretl.sourceforge.net/")
print web_page
string current_settings = readfile("@dotdir/.gretl2rc")
print current_settings
### strlen ###
string s = "regression"
scalar number = strlen(s)
print number
### strsplit ###
string basket = "banana apple jackfruit orange"
strings fruits = strsplit(basket)
eval fruits[1]
eval fruits[2]
eval fruits[3]
eval fruits[4]
string favorite = strsplit(basket, 3)
eval favorite
### strstr ###
string s1 = "Gretl is an econometrics package"
string s2 = strstr(s1, "an")
print s2
### strstrip ###
string s1 = " A lot of white space. "
string s2 = strstrip(s1)
print s1 s2
### strsub ###
string s1 = "Hello, Gretl!"
string s2 = strsub(s1, "Gretl", "Hansl")
print s2
### substr ###
string s1 = "Hello, Gretl!"
string s2 = substr(s1, 8, 12)
print s2
string s3 = substr("Hello, Gretl!", 8, 12)
print s3
### tolower ###
string s1 = "Hello, Gretl!"
string s2 = tolower(s1)
print s2
string s3 = tolower("Hello, Gretl!")
print s3
### toupper ###
string s1 = "Hello, Gretl!"
string s2 = toupper(s1)
print s2
string s3 = toupper("Hello, Gretl!")
print s3
### varname ###
open broiler.gdt
string s = varname(7)
print s
### varnames ###
open keane.gdt
list L = year wage status
strings S = varnames(L)
eval S[1]
eval S[2]
eval S[3]
</hansl>
Best,
Henrique Andrade
10 years
