[Gretl-devel] Standards for function package help

Hi, let me start a new thread here on the devel list about the function package help business. First, thanks to Allin the situation is already much improved. My hope is that the better online accessibility also leads to higher visibility among users. Then there are two or three pending questions I think. 1: Addons are not covered in the list. I think that's perfectly fine, but for outsiders the difference between contributed packages and addons is not so clear. And now the core gretl docs as well as regular package docs are online, but the addons docs are not (or very hidden). Two suggestions here: Add a remark at the top of the SHOW_FUNCS output that addons are elsewhere. And secondly perhaps add the pdf help files of the addons to the same place where http://sourceforge.net/projects/gretl/files/manual/ links to. Because this latter link is also on the homepage under http://gretl.sourceforge.net/#man. 2: Another already mentioned gap are the zip packages without pdf file. No immediate action is necessary (Jack has already said he wants to amend the dhurdle.zip package), but my proposal would be to make a pdf file mandatory for zip packages. 3: Then the "markdown" business for plain --or not so plain-- text help docs. (For the beginning of the discussion see the 'New "frontier" package Gretl-users Digest, Vol 138, Issue 14' thread on the users list.) I still think it's a good idea. The line-length problem just seemed to be a problem of a faulty implementation. I wouldn't make the use of markdown mandatory to keep the entry bar low, but we could encourage it. My first question is whether we agree on that? The second question is: I guess package authors should use an indicator tag in their help text if they are indeed using markdown? Simply "<markdown> ... </markdown>", or how would that work? Also, maybe we only want to support or encourage the use of a subset of markdown? Thanks for reading this long post, Sven