Hi Timothy,

You can currently #openHelpBrowser on any class.  This selector is
descriptive while not presuming what #help should do, a word external
frameworks may already have their own ideas and implementations of.

I personally feel that help needs to be written, but Squeak Help can
already be directly edited including copy and paste from emails.


 - Chris

On Fri, May 15, 2020 at 2:40 PM gettimothy via Squeak-dev
<squeak-dev at lists.squeakfoundation.org> wrote:
>
> Hi Folks.
>
> Just a brainstorm here.
>
> We ask Objects and Classes for stuff every day. What if we could send them the "help" message?
>
> OrderedCollection help.
> 1 help.
> '1' help.
> Stream help.
> CompiledMethod help.
> Pragma help.
>
>
> Frameworks...
>
> Seaside help.
> PEGParser help.
> Xtreams help.
> SUnit help
> VMMaker help
> OSProcess help.
>
> "Any package category in the browser" help.
>
> What if Lawson English' videos where available right in the OpenGL package?
> OpenGL help.
>
>
> Make complicated design patterns, like the Tree traversal stuff folks on the pharo boards are discussing objects.
>
> Tree help.
> FactoryPattern help
> SingletonPattern help.
>
>
> Furthermore, make it trivial for anybody to directly write the help into the object. (This is a huge drawback for the current Help system. I do not want to program Help topics, I want to cut-n-paste some text very quickly)
>
> For example, Levente has been very helpful in providing advice on using the XTreams-Parsing package.
> It would be very helpful, to just copy-n-paste the emails/conversations  as they happen into the Package's help.
>
> Ditto for PG3.
>
> PG3 help viewall
> PG3 help byDate.
> PG3 help latest
> PG3 help authors
>
>
> Make sense?
>
>
> Class comments are frequently empty stubs.
>
> Furthermore, we have billions (: of smalltalkers out there. Make it easy for them to "commit" their help into the core system on squeaksource from within the image (or make it semi-automatic)
>
> I think it would be a great first-step for aggregating help content and making it easily accessible from within a Workspace.
>
> I honestly "never" use the Help system as I find it awkward and inefficient to read and code. However, for those who do enjoy it, an in-image aggregation system would help its development too.
>
> cordially,
>
> tty
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