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                             About Help Manager
 
This section describes how to use Help Manager in MS OS/2 to display help
information about your application to the user. Before reading this section,
you should be familiar with the Help Manager user interface, messages and
message queues, and menus.
 
Help Manager functions and messages replace the help messages and help hook
described in the Microsoft Operating System/2 Programmer's Reference, Volume
1.
 
You use Help Manager to create help panels and to manage user requests for
help. A help panel is one or more lines of text that describe some feature
of the application. The help panels for an application are stored in
compressed format in a help library. The help library is a separate disk
file rather than a resource within in the application's executable file.
This makes it easy to update a help library or to replace it with
international versions of help.
 
The user requests help in one of three ways: by pressing the F1 key, by
using the Help menu, or by clicking the Help button in a dialog box or
message box. The application must provide the Help menu and Help buttons in
the application, and it must identify a specific help panel for each command
or button. When the user requests help, Help Manager displays a help window
alongside the application window and fills the help window with the text of
the corresponding help panel. The user can either view additional help
panels in the help window by using the commands in this help window or
dismiss the help window and return to the application.
 
While the user views help panels, Help Manager processes all user input,
notifying the application of actions carried out for or requested by the
user. For example, the user can search for, print, or copy help panels by
using commands from menus in the help window. Help Manager carries out these
actions without assistance from the application. In some cases, Help Manager
sends a message to the application window so that the application can
determine what additional action to take. For example, if the user input
results in an error, Help Manager sends an HM_ERROR message to the
application.
 
Help Manager supports hypertext fields──words or phrases in one help panel
that refer to other help panels. The user directs Help Manager to display
the other help panels by choosing the hypertext field (using either the
mouse or the keyboard). Hypertext fields can also direct Help Manager to
display help panels from other help libraries and even to start other
programs. For example, a hypertext field can direct Help Manager to send a
message to the application window to start the application tutorial.
 
You create help libraries by using the Information Presentation Facility
Compiler (IPFC). This compiler produces the compressed help library from the
text files that contain your help text. The help text consists of actual
text and embedded information tags. The information tags direct the compiler
to carry out specific actions, such as setting the help-panel name and ID,
setting the font and/or color of the text, displaying text in special
formats such as lists or tables, adding a bitmap to the panel, and including
help text from another file.
 
 
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