%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).