Two ways to call help from an application

PowerBuilder provides two principal ways of calling an online
help file from a PowerBuilder application:

• Use the ShowHelp and ShowPopupHelp PowerScript
  functions in your application scripts to call help topics.

• Declare the HTML Help API as an external function
  and use the HTMLHelp function in your application
  scripts to call help topics.

Using ShowHelp

ShowHelp is simpler to implement than the
HTML Help API. You can use the ShowHelp PowerScript
function to search for help topics by help context ID, by keyword,
and by accessing the help file Contents topic (the topic defined
in the project file as the Help Contents topic). ShowHelp can
also be used with compiled WinHelp (.hlp) files.

ShowPopupHelp displays pop-up help for
a control. Typically, you use ShowPopupHelp in
the Help event of a response window with the Context Help property
enabled. Events relating to movement of the cursor over a control
or to the dragging of a control or object are also logical places
for a ShowPopupHelp call.

For more information on the ShowHelp and ShowPopupHelp functions
as well as the Help event, see the PowerScript Reference.

Using the HTML Help API

Declaring and using the HTML Help API allows access to the
full range of HTMLHelp functions, many of which are not available
in ShowHelp. For example, using the HTMLHelp function,
you can easily specify a window type or window name in which to
present a help topic.

For more information about the HTML Help API,
see the online help for the Microsoft Help Workshop or the documentation
for your help authoring tool. For more information about declaring
and using global external functions, see the PowerScript
Reference and “Using external functions”.