Online help is most important resource for getting information while using MacAnova. Help can be accessed via the functions help() and usage(). As of version 5, help can also be accessed via guihelp() and a Help menu. help(), guihelp(), and the Help menu give fairly complete (some say too complete) information on all commands and pre-defined macros or macros in files distributed with macanova; usage() gives just enough to remind you what arguments and keywords are needed for a command.

All forms of help are installed automatically when using the installers for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux for version 5.02 or later.

To get help on a topic, say anova, enter the command

help(anova)

anova(Model) computes and prints an ANOVA table for the linear model in
the CHARACTER variable Model.
. . . . . . . and many other lines . . . . .

Alternatively, the command

guihelp(anova)

MacAnova help is in several files, all plain text files in a special format. The largest is MacAnova.hlp.txt which has information on all the commands and most of the pre-defined macros, as well as many other general topics such as files, launching and syntax. In addition, Design.hlp.txt and Tser.hlp.txt have help on the macros in files Design.mac.txt and Tser.mac.txt. And macro files Arima.mac.txt, Graphics.mac.txt, Math.mac.txt, Mulvar.mac.txt and Regress.mac.txt contain their own help. Finally, Gui.hlp.txt has some information on macros in Gui.mac.txt, although you will rarely call these macros directly. These files are listed in MacAnova variable HELPFILES.

Both help() and usage() search all the files containing help.

Since many help topics are quite long, filling several screens, most have one or more subtopics. To get a list of subtopics for anova, type

Cmd> help(anova:"?")
Available subtopics for topic 'anova' are:
  usage
  examples_1
  weights
  omitting_model
  side_effect_variables_created
  keywords
  balanced_designs
  nonbalanced_designs
  after_regresss
  see_also

You can then get help on a subtopic by

Cmd> help(anova,subtopic:"weig") # only enough to identify match
Subtopic 'weights' of help on 'anova'
anova(Model,weights:Wts) does an analysis using weighted least squares.
Wts must be a REAL vector with no negative elements, with the same
length as the response vector.

When the topic name isn't longer than 10 characters, a usage like help(anova:"weig") works, too.

To get an annotated list of the topics in one of the help files, give the command, say,

Cmd> help(index:HELPFILES[2]) # or help(index:"graphics.mac")
Help entries in this file
  bargraph     Macro do draw a bar graph
  boxplot5num  Macro to draw simplified boxplot based only on extremes,
			   and quartiles
  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

In usual configuration, HELPFILES[2] is "graphics.mac" so this gives a list of help topics on graphics macros.

To get a list of all help topics in the current help file, give the command

Cmd> help("*")

This prints out the list of all help topics, but as there are hundreds of them, it may be a little overwhelming. If you know part of the topic name, but can't remember all of it, you can use topics like "res*" to get a list of all topics with names beginning res, "*plot" to get a list of all topics with names that end with plot, or "*anova*" to get a list of all topics with names that include anova.

For example

Cmd> help("res*") # topic names starting with res
restore
For help on topic foo, enter help(foo) or help("foo")

To search all the helpfiles for matching topics, use keyword phrase allfiles:T.

Cmd> help("res*",allfiles:T)
Topics matched on file KB1:+Programs:MacAnova4.0 Folder:MacAnova.hlp
restore
Topics matched on file Regress.mac
resid        resvsindex   resvsrankits resvsyhat

Help topics are also grouped by keys, and you can get a list of all topics on a given key. For example,

Cmd> help(key:"plotting")

gives a list of all topics in the current help file that deal with plots or plotting. To get a list of all available keys, use

Cmd> help(key:"?")

To get a list of keys from another file and make it the current help file, you can use, for example,

Cmd> help(key:"?", file:"graphics.mac")
Type 'help(key:"heading")', where heading is in following list:
Bar graphs           General              Multivariate graphs  
Contour graphs       Interaction graphs   Panel graphs
Distribution graphs  Line graphs          Shapes

Cmd> help(key:"bar graphs")
The following help topics concern Bar graphs
bargraph  hist      panelhist
For help on topic foo, enter help(foo) or help("foo")

To get more information on help() use

Cmd> help(help) # help(help:"?") lists subtopics for help