[docs] [issue16893] Generate Idle help from Doc/library/idle.rst

[Terry J. Reedy]

Terry J. Reedy added the comment:

I have avoided editing the Idle docs because of this issue, but idle.rst needs some corrections and updates now, and will soon need some additions.  I want to only edit idle.rst. So I want to resolve this issue soon.

As I mentioned before, I think the best idea is Ned's: copy Doc/build/html/library/idle.html to idlelib (as help.html for now) and change the 'IDLE Help' code to display it in a browser.  This will be easy and will end the duplication and DRY violation that is the goal of this issue.

Zach, can you produce a makefiles.v4 patch (without .rst changes) that patches the makefiles to add a target do the copying?  The same patch (or another) should add idlelib/help.html to .hgignore so idle developers and testers can 'make' the new target without committing it.  Georg can then update PEP 101 with the new release step.

This change will provide a nicely formatted, always-available local copy that should match the installed micro-version.  Because of PEP 434, later online versions of the doc may contain changes that do not apply to the installed version.

After this is done, and anything in help.txt but not in idle.rst is moved, help.txt will be deleted.

issue16893.v3.diff mixes together changes for this issue and a separate issue of editing idle.rst.  I will separately apply some of your mising changes, but I don't think I like adding the new separators and even more whitespace.  Also, I assume that 'Control' in .txt was changed to 'C' in .rst because OSX uses 'Command' instead of 'Control' and 'C' stands for either.  That is aside from the issue of abbreviating something used repeatedly.  Anyway, I think this is a discussion for another tracker issue.

----------
stage:  -> needs patch
title: Create IDLE help.txt from Doc/library/idle.rst -> Generate Idle help from Doc/library/idle.rst

_______________________________________
Python tracker <report at bugs.python.org>
<http://bugs.python.org/issue16893>
_______________________________________