Copyright: Oasis SE. Copyright (c) 1998. Stephan February. Version 1.0


Topic Tree

The topic tree allows you to easily manage all your topics in a hierarchic tree structure. This tree duplicates what the user will see on the 'Contents' tab of the final help file. There are some exclusions however.

See Also:

Creating Topics


Creating Topic Files


How to..
How to Create Topic Files

The body text of all you help files will be composed using Topic files.

To create a new Topic do the following.

1. Click on the menu item named Topic.

2. Select New

You should now have a new topic icon displayed in the Contents Tree.

See Also:

Conventions Used, Oasis components


Conventions Used

Throughout this help file, certain conventions will be used for text formatting to either clarify or draw attention to the topic being discussed. These conventions are as follows:

1. Menu Items

When a menu action is expected of the user, this will be indicated by bolding the text which signifies the menu option to be selected. eg. the sequence

File, New

Signifies to the user to first click on the File menu item, and then to click on the New menu item which should exist as a submenu under File. The same applies to all popup menus.

Hint:

When a letter of the menu text is underlined, eg.the 'F' in  File, this means that the keystroke sequence of ALT+F will result in the same menu action as using the mouse.


What is Oasis SE?
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Oasis Standard Edition is an integrated environment for creating Windows 95 help files. The purpose of this tool is to provide an easy-to-use interface for authoring help documents. You can get a overall picture of the tools' capabilities by browsing through this help, which was of course created using Oasis SE.

Limitations of SE

The Standard Edition is limited to creating standard Winhelp documents only.

No support is included for HTML, Tables, Macros or Secondary Windows. Linked bitmaps are supported,no direct embedding though.

No hotspots in bitmaps.

NOTE:

Oasis SE is Freeware. This means that you are free to distribute and use it in it's original form. Please do not split up the original distribution media. To ensure that you received all the components please refer to Distributed Files.

Commercial use of Oasis SE for developing help files is allowed. You are not allowed to sell Oasis SE.

Development on the Standard Edition will be frozen as soon as it becomes stable. In the near future I will release a shareware version with a much richer set of features.

If you find this program useful, and use it to generate your help documents, then I would appreciate an acknowledgement of some sort (preferably a short e-mail msg). This is not a prerequisite for using the program, merely a friendly request which you may ignore if you so wish :-)

Oasis consists primarily of the following parts:

1:- Toolbars

2:- Topic Tree

3:- Topic Editor

4:- Keyword display

See Also:

Contact Information,Disclaimer


Toolbars


Topic Editor
Toolbars

There are primarily three sets of toolbars, the Project Toolbar, Edit Toolbar the Topic Toolbar.

The Topic Toolbar gives you shortcuts to the menu options under the Topic menu option.

The Project Toolbar contains shortcuts to various functions related to managing your project.

The Edit Toolbar is used for formatting the topic text.

Fly-By Hints are available for all toolbars.

Topic Toolbar

Create a new topic.

Create a new subtopic under the currently selected header topic. If the current selection is not a header, then a new header is created first, and then the current selection is made a subtopic to it.

Move the selected topic one level down the hierarchy.

Move the selected topic one position up on the same level.

Move the selected topic one position down on the same level.

Delete the current topic.

Create a new Jump Link.

Create a new Popup Link.

Enable the Non-Scrolling Region for the current topic.

Compile and display the help project.


Keyword display


Toolbars


Topic Tree


Topic Editor

The Topic Editor is made up out of a Text Formatting Toolbar, Non-Scrolling Region Editor and the Topic Body-Contents Editor.

Text Formatting Toolbar

This toolbar is found on the right-hand side of the main application window. It consists of , Font Type, Font Size, Font Colour, Background Colour, Font Style (italic, bold, underlined) and Font alignment buttons. These are all shortcuts to the menu interface for formatting text which can be found via: Topic, Font.

Non-Scrolling Region Editor

This is the upper of the two editing regions. All text that you type in here, will be put into the non-scrolling region at the top of your Winhelp window.

Topic Body-Contents Editor.

This is the lower of the editing regions. Text typed in here, are put into the body (scrolling) region of the Winhelp window.

See Also:

Creating Topics


Keyword Display

All the keywords for the current topic are listed in here. The Keyword Display can be found on the bottom left of the main application window.

See also:

Adding Keywords


System Requirements

1:- The Microsoft Help Compiler - HCRTF.EXE (Version 4.0 onwards).

2:- Windows 95/98 or Windows NT 4.x

3:- At least 8Mb of RAM is recommended.

Note:

You can obtain a free copy of the Microsoft Help Compiler from Microsoft's website (http://www.microsoft.com). The help compiler is shipped with most Windows development tools. Please check to see if your development tool includes it before trying to download it.


Step-by-Step procedures


Fly-By Hints
Moving the mouse cursor over a fly-by-enabled object like a toolbar button, pops up a little text message explaining the function of the fly-by-enabled object.


Creating Topics

The body text of all your help files will be composed using Topics.

Creating a New Topic

On the menu go Topic, New, Topic. You should now have a new topic icon displayed in the Topic Tree. The caption of the Topic is automatically put into edit mode. You can now change the name of your new topic. You can change the topic name at any time by clicking twice on the topic caption (not double click).

Header text

You can toggle the Non-Scrolling Region via Topic, Header. When the Header menu item is ticked, a Header or Non-Scrolling region is enabled for the current topic.

Topic Tree Parent

In the Topic Tree parent nodes are referred to as Topic Tree Parents. The Topic Editor is automatically disabled for Topic Tree Parents. To create a new Parent, go Topic, New, Parent.

Subtopics

Child Nodes in the Topic Tree are referred to as Subtopics. To create a new Subtopic, go Topic, New, Subtopic

Hidden Topics

To hide a topic go Topic, Hide. Hidden topics are useful for entering Popup Links that you do not wish to have displayed on Winhelp's Contents Tab.

Default Topic

To change the default topic go Topic ,Set as Default. This will set the currently selected topic to the default one displayed when launching your help file.

See Also:

Conventions Used


Adding Keywords

To add a keyword to a topic:

1:- Select the topic in the Topic Tree

2:- Highlight the word in the Topic Editor

3:- Do one of the following:

a)from the menu go Edit, Keyword, Add

b) or right click on the highlighted text and select Keyword, Add


Inserting a Jump Link
Inserting Jump Links

To insert a new Jump Link, position the cursor at the insertion point in the Topic Editor. Go Topic, Link, Jump. The Topic Tree will now be in Target Mode. Clicking on a topic in the Topic Tree will insert a Jump Link to that topic at the cursor position.

See Also:

Jump Link


Inserting a Popup Link
Inserting Popup Links

To insert a new Popup Link, position the cursor at the insertion point in the Topic Editor. Go Topic, Link, Popup. The Topic Tree will now be in Target Mode. Clicking on a topic in the Topic Tree will insert a Popup Link to that topic at the cursor position.

See Also:

Popup Link


Status Bar

The Status bar displays the following information:

1:- Current Topic ID

2:- Current Context ID

No status information is displayed for Headers in the Topic Tree


Contact Information

Support is available from:

oasisdev@adept.co.za

You can contact the author directly at

stephanf@adept.co.za

website: http://www.adept.co.za/~oasisdev

Send Snail-Mail requests, comments, postcards, money, real estate title deeds etc. to:

Stephan February

P.O Box 7529

Stellenbosch

7600

South Africa


Jump Test
This is an example jump-target topic. Click on the Back button to go back to where you came from.


Popup Test
This is a popup test.


Editing Context IDs

On the menu go Topic, Context ID... This will bring up the context id dialog for the currently selected topic.


Distributed Files

The following are the files Distributed with version 1.0 Beta :

LANGUAGE.DAT

OS.DAT

_ISDEL.EXE

SETUP.EXE

_INST32I.EX_

_SETUP.DLL

SETUP.INS

_SYS1.CAB

SETUP.BMP

DATA.TAG

SETUP.INI

_USER1.CAB

README.TXT

LAYOUT.BIN

DATA1.CAB


Project Options

Project, Options

This Dialog allows you to setup various parameters regarding your help Project.


Window Settings

Project, Window

Using this dialog, you can customize the look of the main Winhelp window. Settings such as buttons and window colour can be adjusted from here.


Subt


Compiling it all
Compiling your help

Before compiling check the following.

1:- A default topic needs to be assigned to your project. See Creating Topics.

2:- Assign a filename to your contents file. You can do this in the Options Dialog found via Project, Options.

3:- Make sure that the correct directory where hcrtf.exe can be found is entered in the Options Dialog.

If you hit the compile button, and nothing happens. Try turning off compression on the Options Dialog. I will figure out what goes wrong there in due time.

Right now no status/error reporting is done during compiling. This will be fixed soon.

Happy compiling!


Jump Link

A jump link is a piece of underlined, green text that when clicked, moves you to a different topic.


Popup Link

A popup link is like a Jump Link with the following differences: Popup links are dotted-underlined. When clicked, they popup a window displaying the target topic.


Topic Node


Non-Scrolling Region

This refers to a region of text at the top of the help window that remains inert as the rest of a topic's text is scrolled.


Target Mode

The Topic Tree is put into target mode during selection of the 'target' for a Jump or Popup Link.


Inserting a Bitmap

In order to insert a bitmap into your topic. Type in text of following form:

{bmx[t] filename}

where x can be one of following:

c	Aligns the bitmap as a text character on the baseline of the type in exactly the same place in the paragraph where the reference occurs. Because the bitmap is treated as text, any paragraph formatting properties assigned to the paragraph also apply to the bitmap.

l	Aligns the bitmap along the left margin. Text is aligned with the upper right corner of the bitmap and wraps along the right edge of the image.

r	Aligns the bitmap along the right margin. Text is aligned with the upper left corner of the bitmap and wraps along the left edge of the image.

t  An optional parameter specifying that the white background of the graphic should be replaced by the background color of a Help topic. This character can be specified in addition to any of the other values. It can be used only with 16-color bitmaps. The square brackets is not to be included in the statement.

filename is the name of the bitmap file to be inserted. Don't forget to include the curly-brackets!

e.g


DISCLAIMER

USAGE OF THIS PROGRAM IS ENTIRELY AT YOUR OWN RISK. THERE ARE NO WARRANTIES, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED.


Playing AVI Files

Adding multimedia to your help-file is extremely easy with Oasis SE.

Place the cursor at the point in the Topic Editor where you want the .avi to be displayed. Then enter your reference using the following syntax:

{mci[ _left|_right ] [options,] filename.ext}

the keywords _left and _right specify alignment within the topic's window.

For options, you should substitute one, or combinations of the following values:

external	Keeps the file outside of the Help file.

noplaybar	Hides the playbar.

nomenu	Hides the menu button if there is a playbar.

repeat	Repeats playing automatically when playing is done.

play	Plays the file automatically when the topic is shown.

e.g


Default Topic
Set Default Topic ID


Help Title
Text to display in Winhelp Title Bar


Copyright Version Field
Copyright text to display in Winhelp About-Box


Paste Or Print
Like it says...


Inserting an URL

You can insert any of the generic URL forms.

1. From the menu do Topic, Link, URL.

e.g

which produces the following link.

Hint: Substitute the 'http://' for 'mailto:' or 'ftp://' , then complete the rest of the URL as an e-mail address or a FTP address respectively. This allows you to automatically link to those resources.

Oasis SE Home Page


URL
The complete URL, including the protocol

e.g 'http://www.adept.co.za/~oasisdev'