The FatHelp system displays help about a selection of topics. It can also tailor its help to suit the experience of the user. This help explains how to get the most out of the FatHelp system.
{subhead}Choosing a New Topic
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Clicking the middle mouse button (MENU) over this window will give you a menu. If you move right off 'Topic' you will get a list of the available topics. Simply choose a topic from that list.
You can also open this menu by clicking MENU over the FatHelp icon on the iconbar.
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Click MENU over either this window or the FatHelp iconbar icon and choose a topic from the 'Topic' submenu.
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{subhead}Changing the Technical Level
From the same menu, select the 'Level' submenu and choose the help level you require. Level 1 is simple help for new users and level 4 is advanced help for experienced users. The help displayed in the window will change to reflect your new level.
{subhead}Changing the Size of the Window
You can change the size of the window by dragging the resize icon at the bottom right hand corner.
If you change the width of the window the text will reformat so it is still all visible. I hope.
{subhead}The Browser Window
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The browser may have opened automatically. If you can't see it, click the left mouse button (SELECT) over the FatHelp icon on the iconbar. You can use the browser window to select the Technical Level and the help topic. Changing the Technical Level from the browser window does not do anything until you select a new help topic.
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The browser may have opened automatically. If you can't see it, click SELECT over the FatHelp iconbar icon. Changing the Technical Level from the browser window does not do anything until you select a new help topic.
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{title}Copyright Notice
FatHelp is copyright Fat German Productions. You may not modify any of the program files at all. You may not distribute it without my permission. However, people wishing to use FatHelp for their own programs may do so provided they have my permission and they comply with the rules set out below.
Right, I think that covers it.
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To discover how to use FatHelp to display your own help, select Technical Level 4.
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{title}FatHelp for Programmers
{subhead}How to use FatHelp to display your own help
It's dead simple really. You need to create one text file for each topic. (In fact you can use more than one file for a topic, you'll see how below). The help file is just normal text, except that it contains some markers to tell FatHelp which bits of text are relevant to which technical level. There are also some formatting commands.
{subhead}The Text Itself
I'm not going to give guidelines for how to write help because that would be far too schoolteacherish. A FatHelp file is just a text file. You do not have to worry about wrapping words to 80 columns or whatever because FatHelp will format your file for you. For reference, this file is !FatHelp.Help.fathelp
{subhead}Technical Levels
Technical Levels are separated by including numbers in square brackets at the start of a line.
In the following example, I have used round brackets () instead of square ones because otherwise the program will try and use them as markers....
(1)
This line will only be displayed if the lowest technical level is selected.
(2)
This will only be displayed if the second help level is selected
(34)
This will be displayed if either the 3rd or 4th help level is selected The paragraph can continue and will only be displayed if level 3 or 4 is selected
(2)
This will only be displayed on level 2.
(1234)
Until I do this. This paragraph will always be included.
So, on Level 3, the above would read
This will be displayed if either the 3rd or 4th help level is selected The paragraph can continue and will only be displayed if level 3 or 4 is selected
Until I do this. This paragraph will always be included.
{subhead}Formatting Commands
Formatting commands are marked by curly brackets {}. The commands are all case sensitive. You cannot have more than one command per line and they are all case sensitive.
The available commnds are:
{subsub}{title}some text
This command will cause 'some text' to be displayed as a title - i.e centred and in a large bold font.
{title}This is a Title
{subsub}{subhead}some text
This command will cause 'some text' to be displayed as a sub-heading.
{subhead}This is a sub-heading
{subsub}{subsub}some text
This causes 'some text' to be displayed as a sub-sub heading.
{subsub}This is a sub-sub heading
{subsub}{centre}some text
This will cause 'some text' to be displayed in the normal font, but centered.
{centre}This text is centered
{subsub}{sprite}spritename
This displays a sprite from your configured Sprite file. See below for how to include a sprite file with your help. The sprite will always be centered. 16-colour sprites MUST have a palette. 256-colour sprites must have NO palette. I would recommend using only square-pixel sprites (e.g. mode 27) since thse display correctly in all modes on a RiscPC.
{subsub}{tab}
This command must be the only thing on a line. It causes all subsequent lines of normal text (i.e. not headings etc) to be indented. The indent can be terminated by the command
{subsub}{notab}
which must also be the only thing on a line.
{tab}
This text is indented. It will stay this way until I terminate it with a {notab} command. The {tab} command is the only command that will span multiple lines. All the others only apply to the line they are on.
{notab}
Finished Help and Sprite files should be saved in the directory 'Help' inside !FatHelp
Your help file must end with a Carriage Return (i.e. hit 'Return' at the end of the last line).
{subhead}The Config File
The other thing to edit is the file 'Config' from inside !FatHelp.
The order and Case Sensitivity of the things in Config is important. Bear
that in mind.
The following is a sample Config file. The lines beginning '#' are comments
which are there to explain the purpose of each line.
{tab}
# This line specifies the name of the application as it will appear in the
# Task Manager window and the title bar of the FatHelp browser window.
AppName:Black Hole Help
# This is what will appear in the icon above the four radio buttons
# in the browser window
LevelTitle:Select Level of Technical Detail
# This is what will appear in the icon above the pane in the browser
TopicTitle:Then Click on Topic of Interest
# This is the description of Help Level 1
Level1:What's going on then?
# Ditto for Levels 2,3, and 4
Level2:Not too many long words
Level3:Everything but the hard bits
Level4:My Brain! My Brain!
# Now begin the descriptions of the topics.
# The icons will appear in this order in the menu and the browser.
# It is important that the first one is Help1, the second is Help2 etc.
# Case Sensitivity is essential.
Help1
# This is the name of the icon in the browser (from the WIMP sprite pool)
Icon:!help
# Now follows a list of the files that will be used to build up the help.
File:Misc
File:TheEnd
# This is the name of the sprite file to use
Sprites:MiscS
# This is the description line that appears next to the icon.
Descr:Miscellaneous
# Further topics follow
Help2
Icon:!BlakHole2
File:Config
Descr:Configuration Options
Help3
Icon:Bin2
File:Singlarity
Descr:Singularity
Help4
Icon:Directory
File:Auto_Saver
Descr:AutoSaver
{notab}
{subhead}Calling FatHelp from Other Programs
You can call FatHelp from your own program and tell it to display a particular topic by adding a parameter to the command line. E.g. from BASIC you could do SYS"Wimp_StartTask","<fatHelp$Dir>.!run -topic=fathelp". This will make FatHelp start up, and search the configuration file until it finds the line combination
Help<number>
File:fathelp
It will then go directly to displaying that Help topic using the last Technical Level the user used (or level 3 if the program hasn't been used before).
{subhead}Considerations
FatHelp is not really suited to displaying enormous documents. The code to redraw and format the text is very messy and relies on completely reformatting all the text every time the window is resized. And it's in BASIC, apart from a tiny bit of ARM code. This is not really a great idea but it runs at an acceptable speed on my RiscPC 700. So there. I am probably not going to change this because the way I've done it is easy.
Secondly, headings that are too long to fit in the window will simply disappear off the edge. I may rectify this at some point in the future, but I doubt it.
Lines that are centered but too long for the window WILL be split over multiple lines, but only the first will be centered. This is really crap but I can't be bothered to fix it right now.
{centre}I think that should probably explain it. Byee.
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{subhead}Disclaimer:
This program is supplied 'as is' with no guarantee of its suitability for any purpose. I will not be held responsible for any loss of data occuring through the use or misuse of this program
{subhead}Public Domain Notice:
The FatHelp System is released by courtesy of the Fat German in association with the Great Green Gollywog and his miners. It may be freely copied and used, as long as the following conditions are met:
{tab}
a) That this notice is distributed unchanged with every copy.
b) That the application is supplied unchanged.
c) No charge is made for the distribution. Public domain libraries may make a small charge to cover distribution costs
d) That nobody uses a commercial application where a public domain one would do just as well.
e) That you do not allow your computer to take over your life and turn you into a sad, lonely creature, only able to communicate via electronic mail and unable to relate to the real world, skin turning translucent from lack of natural light, fingers bent and bruised from excessive typing, only able to think in ARM code and, worst of all, a fan of Star Trek.
{notab}
{subhead}Rules for 3rd party use
Any third party wishing to include FatHelp as part of a project is welcome to do so provided they follow these rules.
{tab}
1) No third party is to distribute FatHelp or any of its files without first contacting me for permisson.
2) Parties wishing to use FatHelp as part of a project which is to be sold for profit will be expected to pay a license fee to me.
3) FatHelp may not be distributed in modified form, with the exception of the 'Config' file and the files in the 'Help' directory.
4) The files !ReadMe and !Sprits must be included inside !FatHelp.
{notab}
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{subhead}Potential Future Enhancements
Ideally I would like to get rid of all this curly bracket nonsense and use HTML as the document description language. This would make them easily portable, etc. and might even end up being a vaguely good idea. However I have not sufficient patience (yet) to even attempt to read the HTML specification yet alone write code to implement it. Especially in BASIC. Any takers? Ha Ha.
