xcall AUI, AUI_HTMLHELP, opcode, status, hfile {,htopic{, row, col}}
The HTMLHELP class provides means of displaying context-sensitive help using Windows CHM/HTML help system. By establishing links between topics in your help file and operations in your program, you can call the appropriate topic when the user invokes help. As currently implemented, the specified CHM file opens and displays the referenced topic.
Parameters
opcode (Num)
Symbol |
Value |
Description |
|---|---|---|
HHOP_DFLT |
0 |
Set default application help file. This allows help topics to be specified to INFLD without having to specify the help file each time. |
HHOP_DSPID |
1 |
Display topic based on HFILE (or default), and a numeric topic ID in HTOPIC. (You will have to consult the creator of your CHM files to get a list of the numeric topic ID numbers.) If HTOPIC is 0, the help file is launched in its default state. |
HHOP_DSPSTR |
2 |
Same as 1 except HTOPIC should be a string which specifies the internal HTM name for the desired topic. These internal names are typically of the form "/topicname.htm", e.g. "/comio.htm". The leading slash is typically necessary. You might be able to determine these names by using a binary DUMP utility on the CHM file (such as DUMP.LIT). As with opcode 1, if HTOPIC is "", the help file is launched in its default state. |
HHOP_POPUP |
3 |
Display a pop-up message. The text of the message (up to 2048 characters) should be specified in HTOPIC, and HFILE should be "". If ROW and COL are specified and non-zero, then the top center of the pop-up box will be positioned at that point. Otherwise, the pop-up box will be positioned just below the current cursor location. |
status
If you want a return status, specify an F,6 variable, in which case, >=0 indicates success, and <0 indicates failure (including -15 for ATE timeout). The most likely failures would be that the CHM system is not supported (due to running on Unix without ATE or perhaps an old version of Windows), or the help file/topic could not be located. If you do not care about the return status, specify this parameter as "". (This eliminates the need for the ATE client to return anything, which is a minor optimization.)
hfile (String)
File filespec of CHM file. May be in AMOS or native format and may contain environment variables using the %ENV% syntax. Note that you may put your help files in the same directory as the A-Shell help files, in which case you can reference them by:
HFILE = "%MIAME%\doc\filename.chm"
If the environment variable %MIAME% is not explicitly defined, it will be interpreted as pointing to the directory where miame.ini is located.
htopic (must be String for opcode 2 & 3, may be Num for opcode 1)
Specifies the topic name (<topic>.htm) (opcode 2) or ID (opcode 1) or the actual text to display (opcode 3). Text may contain embedded CRLF characters for line breaks.
row, col (Num)
These apply only to opcode 3, and only if you want to position the help window somewhere other than just below the cursor location. (For large messages, you might want to position it at something like ROW=2,COL=40.)
This function works in A-Shell/Windows and ATE. It may also be called via MX_HTMLHELP (replacing "HTMLHELP" with 137).
