How to add documentation for QGIS Processing algorithms?

Question

In the Processing modeler, many of the algorithm help tabs say:

Sorry, no help is available for this algorithm.

In the QGIS sourcecode, the processing algorithms seem to reside in:

python/plugins/processing/algs

What general pattern should I follow to add documentation for algorithms (e.g. file naming convention, location, etc)?

Answer 1

You can create help files via Scripts -> Tools -> Create New Script and in editing window hit Edit script help button. There you will find all the fields to fill.

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If your script is script.py the name of the help-file must be script.py.help and it should be placed next to the script itself (in the same folder). For example in Linux the path to the folder is: ~/.qgis2/processing/scripts for Rython scripts and ~/.qgis2/processing/rscripts for R scripts. You can right-click any R or Python script in Processing Toolbox, click Edit script and hit the Save as button to where are these folders are located on your machine.

P.S. Note that absence of the help information doesn't mean that there is no help files. Some other guy and me created help files for processing algorithms while ago and they were even submitted (volaya himself handled that commit if I recall correctly). But nevertheless help tab was still empty for them (even for my scripts that already had help files). I didn't try to work it out since then though.

• Brylie Christopher Oxley: How do I access the Scripts menu? I do not see it on the main QGIS (2.6) interface or in the Processing interface.
• Brylie Christopher Oxley: Also, I would appreciate guidance as to where the help files should reside within the QGIS processing algs folder, relative to the script itself.
• SS_Rebelious: @BrylieOxley, answer updated.
• AndreJ: Are the help files you created included somewhere in the distribution, or can they be found on Github?
• SS_Rebelious: @AndreJ, you can find them in the fdias's fork of QGIS repository. I can't find R sctipts there though. My scripts with help files are stored here I guess only one of them (unify extent and resolution) is not provided by QGIS now (but it is the most popular though). For further discussion you better contact me directly: my e-mail can be found here.