Re: Top 10 IDL Requests

[David Bowman <bowman(at)ipgp.jussieu.fr>]

> So, here is the deal. If you feel inclined to
> submit a couple of ideas to this newsgroup, I 
> will collect them and submit them personally 
> to the VP. I'll even follow up and make sure 
> he has, uh, read them. :-)


What an amazingly welcome opportunity to air petty grievances!  Many
heartfelt thanks both to you and the anonymous VP...

I must admit that I am not a code-god like some of the frequent posters
to this newsgroup.  :-)  As a mere computational mortal, I frequent the
IDL Online Help facility, and I heartily believe that this help
facility is one of IDL's strongest and most oft-neglected points.  (It
certainly beats the Hades out of Matlab!)  However... call me a
stick-in-the-mud, but I would like to make a heartfelt request to have
the old (pre 5.3) Help back.  At the very least, please bring back the
old "Routines by Application" section.  And it would also be nice if
typing the name of a command in the "Keyword:" field would
preferentially bring up the page describing the actual routine, rather
than the somewhat obscure pages that in fact appear.  For instance, try
typing "plots" as the keyword.  You are lead not to a description of
the PLOTS procedure but rather to a general discourse on object
graphics.  Not useful to a mere lubber like myself.

Thanks for representing the views of the community!

-- 
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David Bowman                  "Smash forehead on keyboard to continue."
Laboratoire Tectonique
Institut de Physique du Globe - Paris
4 Place Jussieu
75252 Paris Cedex 05
France