[R] Building static HTML help pages in R 2.10.x on Windows

[Duncan Murdoch]

On 07/01/2010 9:51 AM, Gabor Grothendieck wrote:
> On Thu, Jan 7, 2010 at 9:20 AM, Duncan Murdoch <murdoch at stats.uwo.ca> wrote:
> > On 07/01/2010 9:05 AM, Michael Friendly wrote:
> >>
> >> Michal Kulich wrote:
> >> > On 7.1.2010 9:49, Dieter Menne wrote:
> >> > > I am sorry to say that the new dynamic help is a HUGE nuisance to me.
> >> > > Had to revert back to R 2.9 because of that :-(.
> >> > > Michal
> >>
> >> I too have reverted to 2.9.2 on Win XP because I find html help to be far
> >> less convenient than the compiled CHM help I had before. CHM help is
> >> so much easier because the Contents, Index and Search panels make it easy
> >> to *see* all the items defined for a package, and I get a separate help
> >> window for each package.
> >> I very much appreciate the efforts of the R-core team to move R forward,
> >> but I think the change in help is a step back.
> >>
> >
> > You can see the items for the package on the index page for the package,
> > which is linked from every page.
> >
> > You can put together a package that displays the help in your favourite
> > format, if you don't like the default format.  There's nothing that we used
> > in CHM help that couldn't be duplicated in Javascript, without the security
> > holes.
> >
> > I see it as more important that R core enables others to do what they want,
> > rather than to maintain ancient designs.
>
> Perhaps the link to the Index could be placed at both the top and
> bottom rather than just at the bottom since its a nuisance to have to
> scroll down and its less noticeable at the bottom as its typically off
> the screen.
Yes, I may do that at some point, to make the layout of the help pages 
more consistent.  Most "higher level" pages have a consistent header 
(more so in R-devel), but the individual topic pages don't.

What I'd really like is for someone who has good taste to redesign the 
look of the whole system.  I think one or two people are working on 
packages to do this, and I'd much rather spend time providing whatever 
low level support they need, rather than doing it myself.

Duncan Murdoch