browse-help

Author: Tim Anderson

Updated:

Summary

Context-sensitive help via a WWW browser for GNU Emacs

Commentary

This package provides support for context-sensitive help within Emacs.
It parses user supplied help files to build up an index of topics and
their corresponding URLs. When a topic is looked up, its help
is displayed to a browser via the browse-url package.


Current functionality includes:
. browsing help for the current word
. browsing help for the current region
. interactive searches, with completion


Usage:

To use this package, add the following to your .emacs file:

(require 'browse-help)

Now customize `browse-help-files' located in the Help->Browse Help
customization group. This associates help files with their appropriate
Emacs modes.

Help files may be:
. HTML documents
  The HTML parser will parse entries of the form:
     TOPIC
. Index files
  Each line must contain entries of the form:
     TOPICURL

To use the help, set up appropriate key bindings for:
. `browse-help-on-current-word'
  This searches help associated with the current mode for the current
  word. If there is a single match, the associated URL will be displayed in
  a browser. If there are multiple matches, they will be displayed to a
  Browse Help buffer; from here the appropriate topic can be selected with
  the mouse.
  The default key binding is C-c C-w.

. `browse-help-on-current-region'
  This provides the same basic functionality as
  `browse-help-on-current-word' except that the search is done using the
  current selected region.
  The default key binding is C-c C-r.

. `browse-help-search'
  This performs an interactive search (with completion) of help
  associated with the current mode.
  The default key binding is C-c C-f.

. `browse-help-display-manuals-for-mode'
  This displays all help associated with a particular mode.
  The default key binding is C-c C-m.

You can customize the key bindings via `browse-help-key-bindings'.

Other relevant functions:
. `browse-help-display-manual'
  Display a single help manual.

. `browse-help-save-manual'
  Saves manual as an index file, parseable by `browse-help-parse-index'.

Dependencies