[lazarus] Context sensitive help

[Tony Maro]

Oops, think I sent this from the wrong account first time.  If this is a dupe 
then sorry:

On Friday 11 April 2003 03:13 am, Mattias Gaertner wrote:

> Under Delphi TControl has the three properties
>
>     property HelpType: THelpType;
>     property HelpKeyword: String;
>     property HelpContext: THelpContext;
>
> The LCL has the same, but they were not published, because help is not
> implemented in TApplication yet. I have published them.

Ah... was this implemented after Delphi 4?  Perhaps it's just been too long 
since i used it.

Okay, I'll try to make the appropriate adjustments to my code...

> > This should be standard behaviour of the TWinControl component, there
> > should be no need to add a separate control. Your problem of who gets to
> > see the keystroke first is then solved.
>
> I think, Michael is right.

But then we must decide that the official help system for Lazarus will be HTML 
files (or whatever.)  I wasn't ready to make that judgement call.  Or perhaps 
we could have some sort of an OnHelp event for the Application object that 
could be set... then you could plug in a component like mine that handles the 
help system the way the user wants.

With that kind of addition, it would be easy to make a component that drops on 
a form which would launch help from an external library, or whatever.  Or, a 
different component that would launch HTML files.  Or perhaps a third that 
would encapsulate it all within the application itself.  And this would be 
able to happen without changing any of the help pointers on the controls.  
Just change the help handler component.

See what I'm saying?  Kind of a pluggable help system to fit the programmer's 
needs.  Under Windows, Help was pretty much designated by the OS.  Under 
Linux we aren't quite so limited (or structured as the case may be.)

I'm working pretty heavy on this because I think this is one of the things 
that will make a huge difference in Linux applications - how many Linux apps 
do you know that have HELP, much less context sensitive help?  If it's an 
easy thing to do, then applications written in Lazarus will easily be of 
greater quality than most apps written for Linux.

I guess one more quesiton before we jump in with both feet is, how does Kylix 
handle it's help system?  Or does it?

-Tony