Help text style guide: Difference between revisions

→‎Guidelines: News section with octave guidelines to write help text
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(→‎Guidelines: News section with octave guidelines to write help text)
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Functions should have help text so that people know how to use it.
Functions should have help text so that people know how to use it.
= Guidelines =
== First sentence ==
The first sentence of help text should start with a statement that is like a command. For example, the first sentence of {{Codeline|hist}}:
<pre>
Produce histogram counts or plots.        # good
Produces histogram counts or plots.        # bad
hist produces histogram counts or plots.  # bad
</pre>
== Manual reference ==
When submitting a function to Octave, a tag for the docstring should be added to some appropriate place in one of the manual's .txi source files (they are all in {{Path|doc/interpreter/}}). Find the most appropriate section in the manual and add the following with the related functions:
{{Code|adding tag for function help text in Octave's manual|<pre>
+@DOCSTRING(function_name)
</pre>}}
If appropriate, also write some text about the function on the manual for better inclusion into the manual.
== Sentence spacing ==
The typographical convention in Octave is to use two full spaces after a period that ends a sentence. For example:
<pre>
there is no correct for sentence spacing.  But we need a convention # good
there is no correct for sentence spacing. But we need a convention  # bad
</pre>


= TexInfo =
= TexInfo =
This is the prefered format for help text. There is also a comprehensive [http://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo/manual/texinfo/html_node/index.html TexInfo manual].
This is the preferred format for help text. There is also a comprehensive [http://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo/manual/texinfo/html_node/index.html TexInfo manual].


== Octave specific macros ==
== Octave specific macros ==