Merge pull request #141 from emmanuelle/user_guide

DOC: User guide--getting help section.

TASKS.txt

@@ -1,5 +1,7 @@
  ..  role:: strike
 
+.. _howto_contribute:
+
 How to contribute to ``skimage``
 ======================================
 

doc/examples/README.txt

@@ -1,3 +1,4 @@
+.. _examples_gallery:
 
 General examples
 -------------------

doc/source/user_guide.txt

@@ -7,3 +7,4 @@ User Guide
    user_guide/data_types
    user_guide/plugins
    user_guide/tutorials
+   user_guide/getting_help

doc/source/user_guide/getting_help.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,56 @@
+=================================
+Getting help on using ``skimage``
+=================================
+
+Besides the user guide, there exist other opportunities to get help on
+using ``skimage``.
+
+Examples gallery
+----------------
+
+The :ref:`examples_gallery` gallery provides graphical examples of
+typical image processing tasks. By a quick glance at the different
+thumbnails, the user may find an example close to a typical use case of
+interest. Each graphical example page displays an introductory paragraph,
+a figure, and the source code that generated the figure. Downloading the
+Python source code enables one to modify quickly the example into a case
+closer to one's image processing applications.
+
+Users are warmly encouraged to report on their use of ``skimage`` on the
+:ref:`mailing_list`, in order to propose more examples in the future.
+Contributing examples to the gallery can be done on github (see
+:ref:`howto_contribute`).
+
+Search field
+------------
+
+The ``quick search`` field located in the sidebar of the html
+documentation can be used to search for specific keywords (segmentation,
+rescaling, denoising, etc.).
+
+Docstrings
+----------
+
+Docstrings of ``skimage`` functions are formatted using `Numpy's
+documentation standard
+<https://github.com/numpy/numpy/blob/master/doc/HOWTO_DOCUMENT.rst.txt>`_,
+starting with a ``Parameters`` section for the arguments and a
+``Returns`` section for the objects returned by the function. Also, most
+functions include one or more examples.
+
+
+.. _mailing_list:
+
+Mailing-list
+------------
+
+The scikits-image mailing-list is scikits-image@googlegroups.com (users
+should join the `Google Group
+<http://groups.google.com/group/scikits-image>`_ before posting). This
+mailing-list is shared by users and developers, and it is the right
+place to ask any question about ``skimage``, or in general, image
+processing using Python.  Posting snippets of code with minimal examples
+ensures to get more relevant and focused answers. 
+
+We would love to hear from how you use ``skimage`` for your work on the
+mailing-list!