Aduke.1606 net.unix-wizards utcsrgv!utzoo!decvax!duke!mad Tue Jan 12 17:52:06 1982 online documentation I am chief babysitter for a system that is used primarily by non- computer oriented people, who find commands, especially cryptic ones, confusing at best. I agree with yale-com!mp that the short unix commands are here to stay, and I agree that expansion and/or linking isn't really a solution. In order to make things a little easier on our basic user we designed an online documentation program called "coach", which serves to purposes: it provides a listing of the commands our users most likely need, and "coach" followed by a command name will list the most used arguments to a command, a short blurb on the function of the command, and an example. Usually this all fits on a screen, and the list of commands is piped through mc so it also fits on a screen. Our system (an 11/40) won't support man, and we think it is more useful anyway. We also support "help" for the more advanced user who wishes to attempt to find something in the manual. We have found our program particularly useful for documenting home-grown changes to system utilities, or documenting homegrown commands. It is a cute little program and doesn't take much space for the docs, it just takes someone to write them. We found it worthwhile. Good Luck. Mike Dickerson duke!dukgeri!mad ----------------------------------------------------------------- gopher://quux.org/ conversion by John Goerzen of http://communication.ucsd.edu/A-News/ This Usenet Oldnews Archive article may be copied and distributed freely, provided: 1. There is no money collected for the text(s) of the articles. 2. The following notice remains appended to each copy: The Usenet Oldnews Archive: Compilation Copyright (C) 1981, 1996 Bruce Jones, Henry Spencer, David Wiseman.