Document help topics not associated with commands

3 files changed, 35 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/dashes-todo.txt b/dashes-todo.txt
index 514f9545..bece0201 100644
--- a/dashes-todo.txt
+++ b/dashes-todo.txt
@@ -5,3 +5,26 @@ Things to be done to implement the changes described in
 
 - [ ] fix get_help_topics() so it looks in self._help_methods
 - [ ] fix enabling and disabling commands and categories
+- [ ] make get_all_commands() look at the _command_methods dict
+- [ ] make get_help_topics() look at _help_methods dict
+- [x] add documentation showing how to make help that isn't associated
+      with a command
+
+
+## Design principles
+
+The unique thing that identifies a command is not the function, it's the name.
+By default the name of the function defines the name of the command.
+
+Renaming a command is therefore changing the primary identifier of that
+command. When you do so, you are messing with everything else that uses that
+primary identifier for the command, like hidden and disabled commands.
+
+
+
+
+
+## Documentation Updates
+
+- self.hidden_commands
+- self.disabled_commands
diff --git a/docs/features/help.rst b/docs/features/help.rst
index 57aa2187..20cee220 100644
--- a/docs/features/help.rst
+++ b/docs/features/help.rst
@@ -6,6 +6,7 @@ quality or useful that documentation might be.  So it is important that you
 provide good built-in help within your application.  Fortunately, ``cmd2``
 makes this easy.
 
+
 Getting Help
 ------------
 
@@ -35,6 +36,7 @@ command:
     optional arguments:
       -h, --help  show this help message and exit
 
+
 Providing Help
 --------------
 
@@ -56,6 +58,12 @@ for command **foo**.  This dynamic help is only supported for commands which
 do not use an ``argparse`` decorator because didn't want different output for
 ``help cmd`` than for ``cmd -h``.
 
+You can also create help topics that are not associated with any command.
+Simply create a method called ``help_mytopic`` which displays the appropriate
+information. ``cmd2`` will find this topic and show it in it's own section when
+the user runs the built-in ``help`` command.
+
+
 Categorizing Commands
 ---------------------
 
diff --git a/examples/cmds_with_dashes.py b/examples/cmds_with_dashes.py
index 3b10c7ad..7ee5d6f8 100644
--- a/examples/cmds_with_dashes.py
+++ b/examples/cmds_with_dashes.py
@@ -11,6 +11,7 @@ class CmdLineApp(cmd2.Cmd):
         super().__init__()
         self.rename_command('speed_up', 'speed-up')
         self.rename_command('run_pyscript', 'run-pyscript')
+        self.self_in_py = True
 
     def do_speed_up(self, args):
         self.poutput("going faster")
@@ -22,6 +23,9 @@ class CmdLineApp(cmd2.Cmd):
         """some dochelp on the debug command"""
         import ipdb; ipdb.set_trace()
 
+    def help_mytopic(self):
+        self.poutput('additional help on a topic that is not a command')
+
 
 if __name__ == '__main__':
     import sys