just an update

[Fairlight]

On Sun, Dec 18, 2005 at 03:38:19PM -0500, after drawing runes in goat's blood,
John Esak cast forth these immortal, mystical words:
> Yes, and unfortuntely, I lost Laura's Help files when I installed 5.014.
> 
> And many people don't have LHF... but my comment is way beyond all that.
> Both Laura's and the company's Help files are organized alphabetically. This
> is essentially useless for both new and old users. Grouping the functions
> under their appropriate "section" is the only way to go. I would have seen
> it in the "File Functions" section regardless of whether or not there was a
> "See @fstat" under the EXISTS() description. The @fstat would be there under
> "File Functions" as well. I wish they would bring this thing back.

Ideally, one would list help files in XML, or at least put keyword
associations together.  Example from real life:

    <association>
        <resource>
            <url>Patterns/000002.htm</url>
            <title>1935 Lacet Table Runner</title>
        </resource>
        <keyword>4F3</keyword>
        <keyword>runner</keyword>
        <keyword>thread</keyword>
        <keyword>rectangle</keyword>
        <keyword>table</keyword>
        <keyword>mat</keyword>
        <keyword>lacet</keyword>
    </association>
 
I use that in the software I wrote for my wife's business.  I parse the XML
at load (800+ records, and if pretty much flies on anything even remotely
modern--and I have entries with a LOT more keywords than this).  When I
parse it, I store it systematically in memory for easy retrieval by a
search.

Or, one could go whole hog and do boolean google-style searches on help
entries, as implemented in things like mysql's MyISAM tables.  Then you
could search for any word, not just what the developer thought was a good
keyword.  

Still, -some- narrowing is better than either too narrow or too broad.
Just a thought...

mark->