Q&A: Why no Browser help?

Question. Why is there no help in the Mathematica Help Browser about a function you defined?  For example, why can´t I find help about your functions view and image in the Help Browser?

Answer. The Help Browser ordinarily includes help only about functions and other objects that are built into Mathematica or are part of standard add-in packages that are distributed with Mathematica. (Help about other add-ins, such as the electronic version of Gray and Glynn´s book, can be merged into the Help Browser index.)

Instructor-defined functions such as view and image are not built into Mathematica and are not standard add-ins, so help about them is not available in the Help Browser.  That´s why, in the notebooks where I define such functions, I ordinarily include usage message definitions that you may access with “?” in the usual way, for example:

    ?view
    ?image

You can create usage messages for your own functions, too. To create a usage message for your own function myFunc, simply evaluate an expression like:

    myFunc::usage =
       "muFunc[vect, c] multiplies vector vect \n"
       by (1 - c) where c is a scalar."

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