Topic group

dBASE Plus Help Windows

The dBASE Plus Online Help currently uses three types of windows to display information or aid in navigation.

  1. Main Topic window

Several areas of the Main topic window graphic, displayed below, have popup descriptions. Move the cursor over a desired item and click to see it's description.

image\TOPICMENU2_shg.gif

  1. Topic group window

Help topics are grouped according to functionality, with the "group" roughly coinciding to the books in the Table of Contents. Clicking the Topic group hotspot opens a window, to the left of the topic window, containing all topics belonging to that group. The beforeGetValue property, shown above, belongs to the Data Objects group, and it's "Topic group" window will display all classes, properties, events, methods and other items belonging to the Data Objects group.

The Topic group window does not automatically syncronize with the Main topic window. Once the Topic group window has been displayed, navigating in the Main Topic window to a topic outside the current topic group, has no affect on the Topic group window. The content of the Topic group window only changes when the Topic group hotspot, in the Main topic window, is clicked.

  1. Example window

Many topics include examples that can be accessed from the Example hotspot in the Main topic window's Banner area. In addition to the standard Windows Minimize, Maximize and Close buttons, the example window includes the following:

Contents displays the Table of Contents tree.

Index accesses the Help systems' "Index" and "Find" search tabs.

Print prints the entire, currently displayed topic.

Close closes the example window and returns to the calling topic.

Copy copies the entire topic, or selected text, to the Windows Clipboard.

Clicking in the desired window will shift focus between the example and topic windows. To close an example window, click the X button image\XBUTTON.gif in the upper right corner.

Popups

Popups appear in red with a broken underscore and display a small window containing a brief description of the highlighted item. To remove the Popup window, simply click anywhere in the original topic.

Jumps

Jumps appear in red underscored text and display the highlighted topic.

Jumps in the topic's "Banner" area open windows containing examples, or Group/Related topic lists.

Jumps in the topic's "Text" area navigate to the highlighted topic. To return to the original topic, run through the Contents or Index/Find tabs, use the "Tracker" Button to display a history of recently viewed topics, or use the "Back" Button.

Related topics

As the name implies, the Related topics hotspot displays a window listing other topics of interest. To return to the original topic, use the "Back" Button.

Menu items of interest

Adding notes to a help topic Annotating a Help Topic places a PaperClip graphic at current cursor location. Clicking the PaperClip will display the notes you assigned to it. Place the cursor where you wish the annotation to appear and, from the Edit menu, select Annotate. Type your notes in the resulting dialog box and select Save. The annotation file is stored in the Windows\Help folder under:

(Product Name)_(language version).ann // For example, Plus_en.ann

Creating a list of frequently used topics Bookmarking a Help Topic creates a list, accessed through the "Bookmark" menu option, from which you can navigate directly to topics of interest. The Bookmark menu item offers a single option, "Define". Clicking "Define" opens the "Bookmark Define" dialog which displays a list of current bookmarks and allows you to add or delete.

For a list of typographical conventions used in this Help System, see dBASE Plus documentation.