Providing application Help
The easiest way to provide online Help for a cross-platform
application is to use the Microsoft Windows Help model. You can
author your Help files in Windows, save the Help as RTF files, and
use compilers for Help on each platform. PowerBuilder itself used
this method for some of its online Help.
Help tools
The table shows the products PowerBuilder used to compile Help
for each platform. The vendors sell Windows Help-compatible compilers
and viewers that you can deploy to your users.
For information about licensing and deploying Help tools for
UNIX platforms, see Chapter 11, “Providing Online Help for
an Application”.
| Platform | Vendor | Product |
|---|---|---|
| Windows | Microsoft Corporation |
Windows Help |
| UNIX | Bristol Technology in Ridgefield, CT |
HyperHelp |
Context-sensitive Help
When you use Help viewers from these vendors, you can use
the PowerBuilder ShowHelp function to program context-sensitive Help
into your application. Your scripts for Help buttons or menu commands
will not require conditional code to run platform-specific Help
systems. If the supported Help viewer is not present, the ShowHelp
function displays an error message.
Help for developers
In addition to Help for your users, you can use the Help compilers
from these vendors to build Help for developers. Your Help topics
can document the objects and functions used in the application.
Your developers can view the topics via the User button in PowerBuilder Help
or as context-sensitive topics in the Script view.
For more information on providing Help, see Chapter 11, “Providing Online Help for
an Application”.