SCUHELP - Gives help about SCUBA software

Description:

Displays help about SCUBA software. The help information has classified and alphabetical lists of commands, general information about SCUBA and related material; it describes individual commands in detail.

Usage:

scuhelp [topic] [subtopic] [subsubtopic] [subsubsubtopic]

Parameters:

TOPIC = LITERAL (Read)

Topic for which help is to be given.

SUBTOPIC = LITERAL (Read)

Subtopic for which help is to be given.

SUBSUBTOPIC = LITERAL (Read)

Subsubtopic for which help is to be given.

SUBSUBSUBTOPIC = LITERAL (Read)

Subsubsubtopic for which help is to be given.

Examples:

scuhelp

No parameter is given so the introduction and the top-level help index is displayed.

scuhelp application/topic

This gives help about the specified application or topic.

scuhelp application/topic subtopic

This lists help about a subtopic of the specified application or topic. The hierarchy of topics has a maximum of four levels.

scuhelp Hints

This gives hints for new and intermediate users.

scuhelp summary

This shows a one-line summary of each application.

scuhelp classified classification

This lists a one-line summary of each application in the given functionality classification.

Notes:

The environment variable SURF_HELP should be set to point to the help file. This variable is usually set as part of the Starlink login.

Navigating the Help Library

The help information is arranged hierarchically. You can move around the help information whenever SCUHELP prompts. This occurs when it has either presented a screen's worth of text or has completed displaying the previously requested help. The information displayed by SCUHELP on a particular topic includes a description of the topic and a list of subtopics that further describe the topic.

At a prompt you may enter:

• a topic and/or subtopic name(s) to display the help for that topic or subtopic, so for example, "block parameters box" gives help on BOX, which is a subtopic of Parameters, which in turn is a subtopic of BLOCK;

• a $<$CR$>$ to see more text at a "Press RETURN to continue ..." request;

• a $<$CR$>$ at topic and subtopic prompts to move up one level in the hierarchy, and if you are at the top level it will terminate the help session;

• a CTRL/D (pressing the CTRL and D keys simultaneously) in response to any prompt will terminate the help session;

• a question mark "?" to redisplay the text for the current topic, including the list of topic or subtopic names; or

• an ellipsis "..." to display all the text below the current point in the hierarchy. For example, "BLOCK..." displays information on the BLOCK topic as well as information on all the subtopics under BLOCK.

You can abbreviate any topic or subtopic using the following rules.

• Just give the first few characters, e.g. "PARA" for Parameters.

• Some topics are composed of several words separated by underscores. Each word of the keyword may be abbreviated, e.g. "Colour_Set" can be shortened to "C_S".

• The characters "%" and "$*$" act as wildcards, where the percent sign matches any single character, and asterisk matches any sequence of characters. Thus to display information on all available topics, type an asterisk in reply to a prompt.

• If a word contains, but does end with an asterisk wildcard, it must not be truncated.

• The entered string must not contain leading or embedded spaces.

Ambiguous abbreviations result in all matches being displayed.

Implementation Status:

• Uses the portable help system.