[matplotlib-devel] Please consider Html Help

[Gary S. <gar...@ya...>]

Monday, July 28,
2014 08:16 AM
Dear Sirs,
Please consider
including Html Help as a third format for MatPlotLib documentation. I was first
introduced to MatPlotLib at an online class in programming which used Python
and MatPlotLib. I was impressed by MatPlotLib but believed that the help system
could be better for someone like me.
 
At the time, only
PDF was available, which has these problems:
- The index page
is difficult to navigate
- You cannot move
backwards and forwards as you follow hyperlinks
- Being page
oriented, text that spans pages has a distracting page break
- In some places,
text spills off the page and is not visible.
 
You added Html
support online, which is was a great improvement. However it has a fatal flaw
for someone like me:
- It is
unavailable to people without an internet connection when then they are
working.
 
Of the help
documents that I used or written, (plain text, UNIX man pages, LaTex, WinHelp
and Html Help), Html Help is by far the best system. Html help is:
- Self contained
- Available off
line
- Easy to
navigate
- Easy to use
index
- Easy to use
table of contents
 
There is only one
problem that I know of concerning using Html Help for MatPlotLib documentation,
support for it on UNIX systems. Rather than rejecting Html Help, why not work
on supporting it on UNIX systems?
 
To see what I'm
talking about, please take a look at the Html Help version of MatPlotLib 1.3.0
which I converted from the PDF file. It is a sourceforge project which you can
access here:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/matplotlibashtmlhelp/?source=directory 
 
What do you
think? Is Html Help a format for offline documentation that you are willing to
support or at least accept? Please reply here or to gar...@ya....
 
Gary Setter