Barton,
About apropos --
http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=1602849&group_id=4933&atid=104933
apropos searches the :maxima package for symbols containing
a substring. (At present "containing" means only "beginning with".)
Isn't this just a kluge to find variables & functions -- doesn't ? foo
(i.e. describe("foo")) do that better? What happens if useful
symbols are in other packages? Why are we looking for symbols,
anyway -- symbols don't correspond exactly to interesting items,
and Maxima has more than a few superfluous symbols, and if
they're undocumented, just knowing that they exist is not very useful.
I think we should just cut apropos. It has more than 1 problem, and
describe does the same thing better. If someone really wants it,
they can always do :lisp (apropos-list 'foo :maxima).
All the best,
Robert