[lazarus] Context sensitive help

[Mattias Gaertner]

On Fri, 11 Apr 2003 11:57:12 -0500
Tony Maro <tony at maro.net> wrote:

> > > 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.

Right.
I never used the help code of Delphi6, but it has OnHelp for forms and for
Application. And it defines the IHelpSystem interface in HelpIntf.pas. Maybe
we can write something similar, so that adding help to applications becomes
more easier. 

 
> 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.

That's the idea of IHelpSystem and the other interfaces defined in
HelpIntf.pas. It also supports to combine several Help Systems. This is
needed for the IDE as well.


> 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.)

Yes. That's why I suggest to add some helper functions to the interfaces.
For example searching the default browser depends on it (win32 -> registry,
gtk -> search executables, gnome -> ???).

 
> 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?

Don't know.


Mattias