Re: [Gretl-users] stylesheet for function package help
On Tue, 14 Aug 2018, Henrique Andrade wrote:
Em 14 de agosto de 2018, Allin escreveu:
> One possible idea would be to insist on markdown in gfn text help,
> though I think markdown itself has problems in the line-length
> department. I've been contemplating the idea of a post-processor
> which would "fix" the help text for a package when it's uploaded to
> the server, but the more examples I look at, the more it seems like
> this would be an advanced AI project!
>
> Another possibility would be to require that all packages have PDF
> documentation, though that would both raise the bar for package
> contribution and spell the end of standalone gfn files.
>
> Any better/different ideas?
It's not a better/different idea, but I think Markdown is a great way
to write texts. I'm using a lot of it in my R scripts (via RMarkdown)
and I'm very satisfied with the results.
I'm a bit wary of introducing mandatory rules for package writers; pdf
documentation is probably too much.
On the other hand, markdown seems a viable solution. Basically, we could
say that the help text can be a plain text file, but package authors are
encouraged to improve legibility via markdown (which should be rendered
graphically whenever possible).
-------------------------------------------------------
Riccardo (Jack) Lucchetti
Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche e Sociali (DiSES)
Università Politecnica delle Marche
(formerly known as Università di Ancona)
r.lucchetti(a)univpm.it
http://www2.econ.univpm.it/servizi/hpp/lucchetti
-------------------------------------------------------