Alasdair,
> 1) How, when you're creating a small suite of commands, do you add online
> documentation to Maxima?
Maxima knows how to extract text from texinfo files. You can use
maxima/share/template.texi as a template. Latest version is in cvs:
http://maxima.cvs.sourceforge.net/maxima/maxima/share/template.texi
"makeinfo MYTOPIC.texi" creates the formatted .info output file.
To tell Maxima about the new file:
:lisp (nconc cl-info::*default-info-files* '("MYTOPIC.info"))
:lisp (nconc cl-info::*info-paths* '("/path/to/my/info/files/"))
Note the trailing slash character on the path must be present.
Then ? MYTOPIC or ? frotz etc (to use examples from template.texi)
should display text from the .info file. (Note however that WxMaxima
opens an html document when it sees the ? . But describe(frotz)
might work in WxMaxima.)
Texinfo is somewhat strange, but it is doing a lot of work for us,
and I'm pretty sure a system which replicated any substantial fraction
of its capabilities would have to be large, messy, and nearly as strange.
We might try to find a way to make it easier to enter help text into
the existing system, I guess. -- I'd be willing to give up texinfo for
something better, but it's not clear to me what that might be.
> 2) What (and where) are the LaTeX styles used to create Maxima sessions in
> a LaTeX document? I'd like to see Maxima input and output, all
> appropriately coloured.
TeXmacs colorizes a Maxima session -- maybe you can find the
LaTeX style in the TeXmacs distribution, or maybe just use TeXmacs
to create a session when you want to save it as a LaTeX document.
HTH
Robert