%helps - Variable defining the path of help directories
The global variable %helps is an N x 2 matrix of strings. The kth row of %helps , %helps(k,:) represents the kth chapter of the manual and is made of two strings:
%helps(k,1) is the absolute pathname for a help directory.
%helps(k,2) is a title for this help directory. For instance, for k=2, we have the graphics chapter %helps(2,:) .
The variable %helps is defined in the Scilab startup file SCI+"/scilab.star" .
To add a new help directory, the user should add a row to the variable %helps . (One row for each directory).
For instance, %helps=[%helps; "Path-Of-My-Help-Dir","My-Title"]; enables the Scilab help browser to look for help manual items in the directory with pathname "Path-Of-My-Help-Dir".
"My-Title" is then the title of a new help chapter.
A valid help directory must contain:
1- A set of .html files (e.g. item1.html, item2.html etc). The .html files are usually built from XML files.
2- A whatis.html file, which must have a special format. Each row of the whatis must be as follows:
<BR><A HREF="item.html">item</A> - quick description
item is the item of the help, i.e. the command help item displays the contents of the file item.html .
The command apropos keyword returns the row(s) of all the whatis.html file(s) in which the keyword appears.
On Linux platforms Scilab provides a Makefile for transforming .xml pages into .html pages (see SCIDIR/examples/man-examples).