Help with the docs

[Joerg Fischer]

Tim Hubberstey wrote:

> o why are "Action Routines" and "Macro Subroutines" in separate, and 
> widely separated, sections?

For historical reasons in the first place.  There was no macro
language, just action routines and a macro recorder.  Then a macro
language was added.  Still, action routines and macro subroutines
aren't the same thing.  This is more than a documentation problem,
since action routines are only of limited use in a macro - they have
no return values! (On the other hand, if one only reads the macro
subroutines section, one misses many things.)

> o Why is "Auto/Smart Indent" under "Features for Programming" while 
> "Highlighting Patterns" and "Smart Indent Macros" are under "Customizing"?

Syntax Highlighting is under "Features for Programming".  Seems that
this is merely an overview section.  Under "Customizing" it is
documented how to actually change these things.  (Don't know if this
makes sense, I just say how I try to understand it.)

> One additional feature I'd like to see is a tool (either built-in or 
> external) to output the help structure as an HTML file for use with an 
> external browser. 

This is all there.  The help is generated from the file "help.etx"
by a Perl script called setext, that can also output HTML (single
file or separate files) and plain text.  The HTML file nedit.html
should be in the binary distribution packages.  There is of course
everything in the source tree under docs/.

Cheers,
Jörg