/helpr

An alternative html help system for R

Primary LanguageR

helpr

Helpr is an R package that betters friendly HTML documentation. With links to other packages, function aliases, and function sources, finding information is a click away. Using the comprehensive search bar, searching across all R packages is quick and effortless.

The heart of helpr is hosted locally. No internet is required to display all of the documentation, while functionality of the search bar, RSS feed, and comment system requires an internet connection.

The development of helpr was made possible with generous support from Revolution Analytics.

Main Features

  • Home Screen

    • List of all packages loaded / installed
    • Links to all R Manuals
    • Allows you to update out-of-date packages

  • Package Page

    • Every help page link is split into groups
    • Links to package vignettes and demos
    • List of general information: Authors, Suggests, Depends, Reverse Dependencies, and CRAN info
    • Change log of the latest version
    • Disqus comment system

  • Topic Page

    • Display of Description, Usage, Arguments, Details, Value, and Source
    • Usage links to source of each main function
    • List of Authors and “See Also”
    • Examples with full syntax highlighting and able to embed non-interactive example output in browser
    • List of top functions used in the examples
    • Disqus comment system

  • Source Page

    • Function description
    • Full syntax highlighting
    • List of top functions used in the source
    • Disqus comment system

  • Demo Page

    • Demo description
    • Links to other demos within the same package
    • List of top functions used in the demo
    • Full syntax highlighting and able to embed non-interactive demo output in browser

Installation

To install helpr, you first need to install some packages:

  • from CRAN: install.packages( c("stringr", "digest", "mutatr", "brew", "testthat") )
  • from github: http://github.com/hadley/sinartra

Running helpr

Running from an installed package:

library(helpr)
helpr()

Running the development version:

# With working directory set to the helpr package directory
library(devtools)
load_all("helpr")
helpr()

FOR SERVER DEVELOPERS ONLY!!!

Follow the tutorial to get a feel how it works.

(Developers) To install solr, you first need to install brew

  • install brew: ruby -e "$(curl -fsS http://gist.github.com/raw/323731/install_homebrew.rb)"

  • install solr with brew: brew install solr

  • Add/replace the two files in solr-conf to solr's example/solr/conf folder

  • Execute the command java -jar start.jar in the /example solr directory to start the server

    • my solr is installed at /usr/local/Cellar/solr/1.4.0/

  • To add/update files, execute one of the index commands from R

    index_topic(package, topic) index_package(package) index_all()

Design inspiration