Placeholder for new command added.
Initial steps of implementation.
Replace calls to non-existent plog() function.
Mostly functional implementation of state checker.

 * validate mast method added
 * state lookup for aliased states added
Merge branch 'master' into 275-plog

Conflicts:
	doc/changes.html
Automate gh-pages updates from master.

1) gh-pages content is now held in master doc/gh-pages/
2) scaled images for html docs are now version controlled rather than
scaled on-the-fly from the originals (these have to be stored on the
gh-pages branch and we want to avoid "new" binary files with each update).
3) new admin script to automatically update the gh-pages branch, and
optionally push to github, with said content and fresh html user guides.
Methods added to check and retrieve states for particular tasks.
Merge pull request #276 from hjoliver/275-plog

Replace calls to non-existent plog() function.
Merge branch 'master' into revamp-gh-pages
Fixed some spelling errors in the User Guide.
Merge branch 'master' into revamp-gh-pages
Updated gh-pages update script.
Change log link in gh-pages index.
Add actual change log to gh-pages.
Create a global config object once at first import of the module.

This significantly reduces the number of temporary directories created
during a suite run.
Global config object only creates a temp dir when needed.
Corrected a typo in a comment.
Merge pull request #277 from hjoliver/revamp-gh-pages

Automate gh-pages updates from master.
Merge pull request #278 from hjoliver/266-tmpdir-cleanup

For Issue 266: too many temp dirs
job file: append to status file.