posit-dev / posit-dev/positron
Support Python help documentation for user-defined variables
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Description
Background
The Help Pane currently supports documentation lookup for functions/classes/etc imported from packages, but not for user-defined functions/classes/etc.
Users may expect to be able to leverage introspection for their variables as they would in IPython/Jupyter, as described in https://wesmckinney.com/book/python-basics#ipython_introspection, but we don't yet support user-defined variables in the Help Pane.
Demo of current experience
https://github.com/posit-dev/positron/assets/25834218/f5379b01-3626-4bfa-a87e-58bba1cc9f2b
ipykernel experience
https://github.com/posit-dev/positron/assets/25834218/cc7eea92-f699-4147-9c77-59dbf224b7ae
Proposal
Add support for user-defined variables in the Help Pane.
Contributor guide
First steps
- Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
- Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
- Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
- Open a pull request that references the issue number.
Research direction
The issue names no files or tests. Start with the Help Pane's existing package documentation lookup and compare it with the linked IPython/Jupyter and ipykernel examples. Done means the Help Pane supports documentation lookup for user-defined variables, including functions and classes.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Assessment
- Tech stack
- python
- Domain
- documentation
- Issue type
- Feature
- Difficulty
- 5/5
- Estimated time
- Over a week
- Activity status
- Stale
- Clarity
- Needs clarification
- Newbie friendliness
- 35/100