19-July-1996
 MAN.PRO - An "old-style" IDL help facility

 The online help system was changed in IDL V4.0.1 to use a commercial 
 hypertext system.   The new system has the advantage of including the entire 
 IDL manual online with hypertext links.    However, it has least two 
 disadvantages compared to the online help in earlier IDL versions:

	(1) It is difficult for users to add help for their own procedures
	(2) It is cumbersome if the user already knows exactly which procedure 
            he requires help with.

Therefore, the MAN procedure was written to emulate the feel of the old-style
IDL help.   In addition, MAN allows one to directly get help on any procedure
without knowing the topic.   For example,
                             
IDL> man,'rebin'         ;Display help on intrinisic IDL REBIN function
IDL> man,'hrebin'        ;Display help on Astronomy Library HREBIN procedure
IDL> man,'astron'        ;Display all astronomy library procedures

To install the MAN procedure

1.  Place the procedures in this directory in one's !PATH.   

2.  Define the !HELP_PATH sytem prior to entering IDL, to point to a directory
    to contain the help files.    This can be done either by setting the
    environment variable IDL_HELP_PATH or by assigning !HELP_PATH in a startup
    file.

3.  Place any IDL help files (such ASTRON.HELP from the Astronomy Library)
    in the !HELP_PATH directory.    Also place the file ROUTINES.HELP from 
    IDL V3.6 into this directory.   This information in the ROUTINES.HELP
    file will be somewhat obsolete, but it is the only way to get online
    help for intrinsic procedures.

Note that MAN has thus far only been tested on VMS and Unix systems.

Modification History:

1-Apr-1996: Modified MPBASIC so that it works even if no ROUTINES.HELP file
            is present

19-Jul-1996: Modified MPBASIC on VMS so that it works for VMS text libraries.