[Bioc-devel] Documentation of GenomicRanges::follow etc. very hard to find

[Philip Lijnzaad]

   Dear all,
   looking up the documentation on functions like follow() and precede() is
   very hard, since they are only documented under the topic "nearest-methods",
   which currently (GenomicRanges package 1.18.4) can only be found using the
   ?? operator (and having found the name of the topic, most newbies are still
   lost  since  ?nearest-methods  lands you in the man page on Arithmetic
   Operators, since they didn't do ?`nearest-methods`)
   I see that the nearest-methods.Rd file contains aliases such as
   \alias{follow,GenomicRanges,GenomicRanges-method}
   \alias{follow,GenomicRanges,missing-method}
   but   methods   from   many  other  Bioconductor  packages,  including
   IRanges::findOverlaps   and   GenomicRanges::findOverlaps  have  plain
   unqualified  \alias{methodname} lines in their man pages as well, which
   makes it much easier to look up documentation. (Of course, the user may be
   presented with the "Help on topic such-and-such was found in the following
   packages:"-dialogue but that is fine).
   So my question is: is there a good reason not to add the following general
   aliases
\alias{precede)
\alias{follow)
\alias{nearest)
\alias{distance)
\alias{distanceToNearest)

   in nearest-methods.Rd ?Without them, it's hard to look up the documentation,
   so   can  these  general  aliases  please  be  added,  just  like  for
   inter-range-methods.Rd? Many thanks in advance,
   Philip

   --
   Philip Lijnzaad, PhD
   Molecular Cancer Research
   University Medical Center (UMC), Utrecht
   Stratenum room 2.211
   IM: [1]plijnzaad at jabber.org , [2]philip.lijnzaad at gmail.com
   P.O. Box 85060, 3508 AB Utrecht
   (Universiteitsweg 100, 3584 CG Utrecht)
   The Netherlands
   tel: +31 (0)8875 68464
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References

   1. mailto:plijnzaad at jabber.org
   2. mailto:philip.lijnzaad at gmail.com