ProfitPress Mega CDROM2 Shareware Freeware (MSDOS)(1992)(Eng)

home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search

/ ProfitPress Mega CDROM2 …eeware (MSDOS)(1992)(Eng) / ProfitPress-MegaCDROM2.B6I / APPS / DATABASE / AHELP5.ZIP / AHELP.DOC next >

Wrap

Text File | 1990-11-04 | 18.0 KB | 426 lines

AHELP.LIB - ADVANCED HELP SYSTEM FOR CLIPPER (SUMMER '87) APPLICATIONS Version 1.3 Copyright (C) 1990, Capella Inc. For a printed copy of this user guide, copy this file to your printer. Introduction ------------ Welcome to AHELP! This help system, for use with your Clipper applications (Summer '87), provides both context-sensitive and generalized help windows. Features of AHELP version 1 (be sure to see version 2, p.7): * You control whether help windows have no border, a single-line border, or a double-line border. * You control whether the cross-bars drawn inside the help windows have no line, a single line, or a double line. * AHELP automatically determines the appropriate intersections. * You control what colors AHELP will use for the help window border, title, content, and highlight bar in the help index window. * You control whether or not the end user has the ability to create or modify help windows. * You control whether or not the help windows have drop shadows. * AHELP automatically positions the help window immediately below the screen position of the input variable (e.g., a GET variable) if the window will fit there; otherwise, the window appears immediately above the input variable. * AHELP provides a help index; whenever any help window is on the screen, the user may press F1 to see the help index. The help index is another window with a scrolling alphabetic listing of help subjects. The user uses the cursor control keys to highlight the subject of interest, and presses Enter to see the corresponding help window. The user may also type the first letter of the subject to move the highlight bar immediately to the first occurrence of that letter. * AHELP is sensitive to the Clipper environment. If the cursor is off when help is invoked, it will be off when control returns to your application. Conversely, if the cursor is on when help is invoked, it will be on when control returns to your application. The same principle applies to colors, function keys, insert status, work area, and the status of SET CONSOLE, DELETED, ESCAPE, and SCOREBOARD. * AHELP does not use any "wait state" commands (READ, WAIT, ACCEPT, INPUT, MENU TO), to avoid conflicts with any pending GETs. It uses the INKEY() function for all keyboard input, with two exceptions: it calls DBEDIT() for the help index window and MEMOEDIT() for displaying/editing help text. What do you have to do in order to use AHELP? Three things: 1. Insert a call to AHELP in your application with the setup parameters you want to use as described in the next section. 2. Insert the command SET KEY XX TO AHELP in your application. 3. Compile your application and link, specifying AHELP.LIB as one of the LIB files (AHELP requires both CLIPPER.LIB and EXTEND.LIB). That's all. The rest is transparent to your application. Setup ----- The application must call AHELP with four parameters before starting the user interface, in order to initialize the help system. During initialization, AHELP declares four PUBLIC memory variables: HELPFILE - the name of the application's help file HELPOPTN - a character string of application options HELPCODE - a character string for use by the application when no input variable is waiting -- AHELP uses the content of `HELPCODE' as its third parameter if the Clipper-passed third parameter is empty and HELPACTIVE - a logical variable set to true when AHELP is executing, and false otherwise. Also during initialization, AHELP checks for the existence of the help file (and creates it if it is missing), and for the existence of the two index files needed (and creates them if they are missing). Setup Syntax: DO AHELP WITH <expC1>, <expN>, <expC2>, <expA> where <expC1> is the name of the application's Help File (one to eight characters) <expN> is any value (ignored by AHELP) <expC2> is a string of switch values: /Bn/Cn/Dn/En /Bn defines the help window Border: n=0 means no lines n=1 means single line n=2 means double line /Cn defines the window crossbar: n=0 means no lines n=1 means single line n=2 means double line /Dn defines drop shadows: n=0 means shadows are off n=1 means shadows are on /En defines Edit capability: n=0 means edit is off n=1 means edit is on These switches may appear in any order. No other switches are defined in version 1. If any switch is missing, default values are: B = 2 (double line border) C = 1 (single line crossbar) D = 0 (drop shadows off) E = 1 (edit on) <expA> is the name of a four-element character array containing screen color values: element 1 = foreground/background colors, help window content element 2 = foreground/background colors, help index highlight bar element 3 = foreground/background colors, help window title and bottom-row message element 4 = foreground/background colors, help window border This array is not needed after AHELP returns. Example 1: DECLARE HCOLOR[4] HCOLOR[1] = "N/W" && content HCOLOR[2] = "W+/B" && highlight HCOLOR[3] = "B/W" && title HCOLOR[4] = "W+/W" && border DO AHELP WITH "MYAPHELP",0,"/B2/C1/D1/E0",HCOLOR | | | | | | filename | | | | color double | | | array border | | | name | | | single | | crossbar | | | | drop | shadows | on | | edit off Example 2: <declare color array and values as above> DO AHELP WITH "MYAPHELP",0,"",HCOLOR && use default switch options After making this setup call, activate the "hotkey" that will invoke AHELP with the SET KEY command. Examples: SET KEY 28 TO AHELP && F1 is the help key SET KEY 291 TO AHELP && Alt-H is the help key SET KEY -9 TO AHELP && F10 is the help key Execution --------- When the user presses the help key while your application is in any wait state, Clipper automatically calls AHELP with three parameters: the name of the procedure in control when the key was pressed, the line number that was executing, and the name of the wait state input variable. AHELP uses the first and third parameters only (not all applications are compiled with line numbers) to construct a "seek key". It opens the help file and performs a seek for that key. If the key is found, AHELP opens a help window and displays the help text; the window is opened as close as possible to the input variable screen position. If the key is not found, AHELP opens a smaller help window in the center of the screen and notifies the user that no help is available. Either window will show available options at the bottom of the window: Escape to cancel help, F1 to call up the help index, and F4 to edit or create the help display (if editing is enabled). Cancel: If the user presses Escape, AHELP closes the help window and returns to your application. Help Index: If the user presses F1, AHELP closes the help window, opens a help index window, and displays a scrolling list of help subjects. The user may press Escape again (AHELP will close the window and return), or move the highlight bar to the desired subject and press Enter to select that subject. AHELP will close the window and use the subject as the new seek key. Edit: If the user presses F4, AHELP turns on the cursor and allows the user to modify or add text until F2 is pressed (to save any changes). The user may press Escape to abort this process, which restores the original help text (if any) and cancels the edit process. If the user chooses to save changes, AHELP prompts for a new title for the help text, and for a new index subject; both are optional. Any title is converted to upper case and centered when the help window is recalled, prefixed with the words "Help on". If there is no title, AHELP provides the word "Help" centered at the top of the window. If the user specifies an index subject, AHELP adds it to the help index (below). Editing keys available during creation or modification of help text are those provided by MEMOEDIT: Ctrl-Y (delete line), Ctrl-T (delete word right), Ctrl- left arrow (cursor left one word), Ctrl-right arrow (cursor right one word), Ctrl-B (reform paragraph), Ctrl-W (save - same as F2). AHELP is not intended for recursion; if the public variable HELPACTIVE is true when AHELP is invoked, AHELP immediately returns. Otherwise, it sets variable HELPACTIVE to true and continues. When AHELP is done, it resets HELPACTIVE to false. Help Index ---------- The help index is basically an alphabetized table of contents for generalized help (although context-sensitive subjects may also be listed). The scrolling highlight bar is used to point to the subject desired; the cursor keys move the highlight bar, and typing a character moves the highlight bar to the first occurrence of that character, if any. Pressing the Enter key selects the highlighted entry, and the Escape key cancels the help index. If edit is enabled, the user may press F4 to edit the highlighted entry, Delete to delete the highlighted entry, or Insert to add a new entry. Edit: If the user presses F4, AHELP opens a small window containing the index entry, turns on the cursor, and prompts for any changes. Pressing Enter saves the entry; pressing Escape cancels the edit operation. Delete: If the user presses Delete, AHELP opens a dialog box to confirm that deletion is desired. The dialog box contains two choices: "Cancel" and "Delete". The cursor keys switch between these choices and Enter selects the choice that is highlighted; alternatively, typing the first letter of either choice selects that choice. Insert: If the user presses Insert, AHELP opens a small window containing a blank index entry, turns on the cursor, and prompts for the new index entry. Pressing Enter saves the new entry; pressing Escape cancels the add operation. Structure of Help File ---------------------- AHELP uses a .DBF (and associated .DBT) for help displays. The name of the help file is determined by the application and passed to AHELP as a parameter in the setup call. If AHELP is unable to find the help file in the current directory, it creates both the .DBF and .DBT files. The record layout is: Field Field Name Type Width Dec Usage 1 HELPKEY Character 20 Seek Key (see below) 2 HELPTITL Character 30 Title for help display 3 HELPTEXT Memo 10 Content of help display 4 HELPSUBJ Character 30 Subject for help index 5 HELPTROW Numeric 2 Window top row [reserved] 6 HELPLCOL Numeric 2 Window left column [reserved] 7 HELPNROW Numeric 2 No. of window rows [reserved] 8 HELPNCOL Numeric 2 No. of window columns [reserved] ** Total ** 99 The Seek Key (field HELPKEY) consists of two concatenated ten-character fields: the first ten characters are the name of the calling procedure, AHELP's first parameter; and the second ten characters are the name of the input variable, AHELP's third parameter. There are two index files created and maintained by AHELP: HELPKEY.N*X and HELPSUBJ.N*X. The filename extension, .NDX or .NTX, is determined by whether you link your application with Nantucket's NDX.OBJ or not. Since AHELP adds four to the number of file handles in use, you may need to increase FILES= in CONFIG.SYS and SET CLIPPER=Fnn in AUTOEXEC.BAT. This will be determined by how many files your application needs to have open at one time. Reserved Names -------------- All function and procedure names in AHELP.LIB begin with the four letters "HELP" followed by at least four more characters, except for the "AHELP" procedure itself. Your application should avoid naming any functions or procedures in a similar fashion, to eliminate any potential conflict at link time. All variables used internally by AHELP are declared PRIVATE, with the exception of the four PUBLIC variables HELPACTIVE, HELPCODE, HELPFILE, and HELPOPTN (all of which also begin with the four letters "HELP"). Version 2 --------- Version 2 of AHELP adds seven major features: * Network capability. AHELP opens the help file for shared use only unless an update is required. Then it locks the record long enough for the update, and immediately unlocks the record. * Import help displays from ASCII text files. During creation of a new help display, the user may press F7 to tell AHELP to import one or more lines of text from a user-specified file. * Copy or refer to an existing help display. During creation of a new help display, the user may press F1 to tell AHELP to open the help index window, "point" to the desired entry, and use that help display. * Key word capability. One or two key words may be specified for each help display, and a key word search routine allows lookup by matching against a key word prompt. You control whether or not this feature is enabled. If so, it is activated by pressing F7. * Change the default screen coordinates of either the edit window or the help window in the setup call. * "Drag" or move the help window around the screen and save its new position. You control whether or not this feature is enabled. If it is enabled, it is activated by pressing F5. * Expand or reduce the size of the help window and save its new shape. You control whether or not this feature is enabled. If it is enabled, it is activated by pressing F6. Both the move and resize features store the new help window coordinates in the help file record, so the window will be opened in its new place or shape when recalled. Registration ------------ There are no royalty fees for including AHELP in your applications. The registration fee for AHELP is $50.00 for a single-PC license. A site license is $400.00, and a corporate license (including full source code) is $1000.00. Versions for Clipper S'87 and Clipper 5.0 are available; order both versions and get a 50% discount on the second license! The last page of this user guide is a ready-to-mail registration form. Send your check or money order for the appropriate license to: MicroFox P.O. Box 447 Richfield, OH 44286-0447 U.S.A. We will send you version 2 of AHELP, and add your name(s) to our list of users for future upgrade notices and other offers. Specify diskette size(s). <End of AHELP.DOC> AHELP REGISTRATION AND ORDER FORM Send to: MicroFox Co. P.O. # _________________ P.O. Box 447 Richfield, OH DATE _________________ 44286-0447 U.S.A. ______________________________________________________________________ *** Order both S'87 AND 5.0 and take 50% off the second license! *** *** (Both licenses must be at the same level.) *** Single-User License ..................................... $50 U.S. Quantity: Summer '87 ____ 5.0 ____ SUBTOTAL $_________ Site License (unlimited use per site) ............... $400.00 U.S. Quantity: Summer '87 ____ 5.0 ____ SUBTOTAL $_________ Corporate License (unlimited use within enterprise): $1000.00 U.S. (Includes full source code.) Quantity: Summer '87 ____ 5.0 ____ SUBTOTAL $_________ Each License includes a master disk. LICENSES TOTAL $_________ ______________________________________________________________________ Ohio residents add 5.5% sales tax SALES TAX $_________ Shipping and handling charges: U.S.A. ...... $2 each SHIPPING $_________ Canada ...... $3 each All others .. $5 each TOTAL $_________ ______________________________________________________________________ Name ___________________________________________________ Company ___________________________________________________ Address ___________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________ Phone ___________________________________________________ Diskette media: _____ 5.25" acceptable _____ 3.5" required