docs » hs.doc

Prints the documentation for some part of Hammerspoon's API and Lua 5.3. This function has also been aliased as hs.help and help as a shorthand for use within the Hammerspoon console.

• identifier - A string containing the signature of some part of Hammerspoon's API (e.g. "hs.reload")

• None

• This function is mainly for runtime API help while using Hammerspoon's Console

• Documentation files registered with hs.doc.registerJSONFile or hs.doc.preloadSpoonDocs that have not yet been actually loaded will be loaded when this command is invoked in any of the forms described below.

• You can also access the results of this function by the following methods from the console:

  • help("prefix.path") -- quotes are required, e.g. help("hs.reload")
  • help.prefix.path -- no quotes are required, e.g. help.hs.reload
    • prefix can be one of the following:
      • hs - provides documentation for Hammerspoon's builtin commands and modules
      • spoon - provides documentation for the Spoons installed on your system
      • lua - provides documentation for the version of lua Hammerspoon is using, currently 5.3
        • lua._man - provides the table of contents for the Lua 5.3 manual. You can pull up a specific section of the lua manual by including the chapter (and subsection) like this: lua._man._3_4_8.
        • lua._C - provides documentation specifically about the Lua C API for use when developing modules which require external libraries.
    • path is one or more components, separated by a period specifying the module, submodule, function, or method you wish to view documentation for.

Locates the JSON file corresponding to the specified third-party module or Spoon by searching package.path and package.cpath.

• module - the name of the module to locate a JSON file for

• the path to the JSON file, or false, error if unable to locate a corresponding JSON file.

• The JSON should be named 'docs.json' and located in the same directory as the lua or so file which is used when the module is loaded via require.

• The documentation for core modules is stored in the JSON file specified by the hs.docstrings_json_file variable; this function is intended for use in locating the documentation file for third party modules and Spoons.

Locates all installed Spoon documentation files and marks them for loading the next time the hs.doc.help function is invoked.

• None

• None

Returns the list of registered JSON files.

• None

• a table containing the list of registered JSON files

• The table returned by this function has a metatable including a __tostring method which allows you to see the list of registered files by simply typing hs.doc.registeredFiles() in the Hammerspoon Console.

• By default, the internal core documentation and portions of the Lua 5.3 manual, located at http://www.lua.org/manual/5.3/manual.html, are already registered for inclusion within this documentation object.

• You can unregister these defaults if you wish to start with a clean slate with the following commands:

  • hs.doc.unregisterJSONFile(hs.docstrings_json_file) -- to unregister the Hammerspoon API docs
  • hs.doc.unregisterJSONFile((hs.docstrings_json_file:gsub("/docs.json$","/lua.json"))) -- to unregister the Lua 5.3 Documentation.

Register a JSON file for inclusion when Hammerspoon generates internal documentation.

• jsonfile - A string containing the location of a JSON file
• isSpoon - an optional boolean, default false, specifying that the documentation should be added to the spoons sub heading in the documentation hierarchy.

• status - Boolean flag indicating if the file was registered or not. If the file was not registered, then a message indicating the error is also returned.

• this function just registers the documentation file; it won't actually be loaded and parsed until hs.doc.help is invoked.

Remove a JSON file from the list of registered files.

• jsonfile - A string containing the location of a JSON file

• status - Boolean flag indicating if the file was unregistered or not. If the file was not unregistered, then a message indicating the error is also returned.

• This function requires the rebuilding of the entire documentation tree for all remaining registered files, so the next time help is queried with hs.doc.help, there may be a slight one-time delay.