Helpful

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Helpful
Description an alternative to the built-in Emacs help that provides much more contextual information.
Author Wilfred
Maintainer Wilfred
Source https://github.com/Wilfred/helpful
Part of Emacs no

Helpful is an alternative to the built-in Emacs help that provides much more contextual information.

  • Helpful will try really hard to show the source code. It shows the source code for interactively defined functions (unlike the built-in Help) and falls back to the raw sexp if no source is available.
  • Helpful will show you where a function is being called.
  • Helpful renders docstrings with full cross-references, hiding superfluous punctuation.
  • Helpful will show you the properties that have been applied to the current symbol. This provides visibility of features like edebug or byte-code optimisation.
  • Helpful provides a separate helpful-command function, for when you just want to view interactive functions.
  • Helpful displays any keybindings that apply to interactive functions.
  • You can trace, debug (coming soon) or disassemble functions from inside Helpful. This is discoverable and doesn't require memorisation of commands.

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