Re: Help message "tags" about additional help somewhat redundant and irrelevant

[Daniel J Sebald]

On 01/12/2017 11:08 AM, Daniel J Sebald wrote:
> On 01/12/2017 01:36 AM, Mike Miller wrote:
> > On Wed, Jan 11, 2017 at 17:17:03 -0600, Daniel J Sebald wrote:
> > > Anyway, it just seems to me that after short use of Octave, that
> > > "Additional
> > > help..." text becomes really redundant.  I wouldn't call it annoying,
> > > but it
> > > detracts from the cleanliness of the display, i.e., clutter.
> >
> > I think you're looking for `suppress_verbose_help_message(true)`.
>
> Yes, thank you.  This function should be listed in the see-also portion
> of "help help":
>
> See also: doc, lookfor, which, info, suppress_verbose_help_message.
>
> As an alternative, verbosity could maybe be an option:
>
>  -- help NAME
>  -- help '--list'
>  -- help '.'
>  -- help
>  -- help '--noverbose'
>
> but the suppress_verbose_help_message() is geared to function form
> because it returns the present state which couldn't be done with an option.

BTW, help() currently does have a return value (it returns text):

octave:33> helptext = help('help');
octave:34> helptext(1:10)
ans =

 -- help N

If that is the case, suppress_verbose_help_message() could be 
incorporated with something like

 -- [TEXT, VERB] = help(...);

where VERB is verbosity.

Dan