Context sensitive PB help..

[Borje Hagsten]

In PBedit's context sensitive help system, looking up keywords that
have several uses, like COMM, always fails to show the "Found" popup
dialog to select from. It flashes, but then disappears. At least for
me it does. Maybe there is an update of the Roboex files somewhere?

Anyway, while struggling with next version of Poffs, I thought I'd
implement the same context sensitive help system in the editor I'll
be using to view messages, and found that calling WinHelp twice
fixes this "problem".

Maybe useful for those of you who are developing your own PB editors.
BTW, same approach works fine with any help file, this including
WinApi32.hlp - but then you only have to call it once, of course,
like in first case below..

#COMPILE EXE
#INCLUDE "WIN32API.INC"
$PBhelp = "C:\PBDLL60\BIN\pbdll.hlp" '<- NOTE! change to *your* PB path!!!
 
'¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤
' Small test of calling PB's help file for context sensitive help.
'¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤
FUNCTION PBMAIN () AS LONG
  LOCAL I AS LONG, txt AS STRING
 
  MSGBOX "Call up help for COMM, PB way (?)"            '<- this is standard way and should work..
  txt = "COMM"                                          '<- show context sensitive help for this one
  I = WinHelp(0, $PBhelp, %HELP_KEY, BYVAL STRPTR(txt)) '<- %HELP_PARTIALKEY gives same result
 
  MSGBOX "Call up help for COMM, my way"
  I = WinHelp(0, $PBhelp, %HELP_INDEX, 0&)              '<- for PB help, first activate once,
  I = WinHelp(0, $PBhelp, %HELP_KEY, BYVAL STRPTR(txt)) '<- then try to find context sensitive help
END FUNCTION

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[Colin Schmidt]

Hello,

Also, the problem will go away if you don't close the help program between uses. ie just minimize it.

Colin Schmidt

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Colin Schmidt & James Duffy, Praxis Enterprises, Canada
[email protected]

[Edwin Knoppert]

You need to BIND the help to your app.
Use the winhwlp API and provide a handle.
If your window terminates, the help should terminate too.


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[Borje Hagsten]

You are right Edwin. Calling WinHelp(hWnd, PBhelp, %HELP_QUIT, 0&) in
%WM_DESTROY should be there too. This was just little sample. In some
of my own utilities, developed for my use only, I actually often skip
that part because I *want* the help file to remain loaded, but for
"official" app's, one should do it (same should actually be done
before calling up help in the routines above too).

Colin, the problem is PBedit only is able to call up one helpfile at a time.
If you have given it the path to winapi32.hlp in Options, it closes Pbdll.hlp
before caling up Winapi32.hlp on unknown commands. One can always start one of
the helpfiles manually, but better if PB can fix this problem in next release,
if not before..


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