TODSHelp Delphi Component (16bit)

When added to a form in a Delphi application the new component allows the developer to specify, via an easy to use custom property editor, the text required for Popup Help for all the other controls on the form. The text can be up to 32K long, and can contain line ends and other special characters which allows flexibility in formatting. Just a couple of lines of code can then provide complete context sensitive Popup Help for the whole form.

The developer can allow the end-user to access Popup Help in a number of ways; by pressing F1 to obtain Help on the active control; in response to a " What's This? " popup menu accessed by the right mouse button; or by point-and-click with the mouse using the familiar "arrow and question mark" cursor. Only a single line of code is required to implement each of these options.

The Popup Help that the end-user sees is configurable by the developer who can specify fonts and colors. The Popup Help appears in a floating window" and when using the default fonts and colors appears very similar to the Popup Help implemented in dialog boxes in Windows 95. However, there are two features implemented by the component that are not available using the standard Windows 95 mechanism.

A "More Help" context-id can be specified which causes an additional text hotspot to appear on the Popup Help window, and if the end-user clicks on it he is presented with the relevant section of the application's Help File.

Popup Help can also be implemented for all types of window using the TODSHelp component, whereas only windows without minimize and maximize buttons can benefit from the Windows 95 WS_EX_HELPCONTEXT extended window style. And of course the TODSHelp component provides Popup Help equally well for 16 bit applications in both Win95 and Win3.x.

"This component provides a number of advantages to Delphi developers which will help them produce applications that look more professional and are easier for the end-user to operate", said Colin Messitt, Senior Partner at Oakley Data Services. "Currently one popular way of providing Help for the controls on say a Dialog Box is to include a screenshot in the Help File and include hotspots which explain the action of various elements. That just duplicates effort - the user was probably just looking at the real thing, and it requires a lot of work to implement. The TODSHelp component can provide better help for the end-user throughout an application with just a few minutes effort per form on the part of the developer - just filling in the blanks and adding a line or two of code."

The component requires around 360K of hard disk space on the development system. To install it, just extract the Zip file using the Action menu, unzip it and install as you would any Delphi component.

The screenshot shows Popup Help using the TODSHelp component in one of our other products, SmartBoard.