Topspeed_JPI/TS/DOC/TSMKHELP.DOC

.HTX File Format
================

The help file format consists of 'pages' of ascii help text separated
by help directives.

Help text contains the text as it is to be displayed in the help window
together with embedded 'meta-characters' to indicate highlighted titles
and (user selectable) links to other help pages. Help page text must
be less than or equal to 65 characters wide and 18 lines deep.

Help directives are placed on seperate lines between each help page and
are identified by a '!' character in the first column in the line.
Types of directive include the following

! Label:

  This defines a label for the following help page that can act as the
  destination for the help link 'Label'.

! Label1=Label2

  This defines an 'alias' for a help label causing links to 'Label1'
  to be directed to 'Label2'. These aliases can be redefined within
  the help file. This allows text links with the same name to
  reference different pages.

! $case=off

  This defines that the help text is to be accessed in a case
  insensitive manner (e.g. for the language Pascal). This directive
  must appear at the top of the file and is global to that help
  file.

! $chain=filename

  This directive defines which helpfile to search if the key word is
  not found in the current helpfile. There can only be one chain file
  for each help file and it is global to the entire file.

  example:

    ! $chain=tsc.hlp

! Label>ExtFile|ExtLabel

  This defines that the destination label 'Label' is not within the
  current file but is located in the help file 'ExtFile'.
  Following the help link 'Label' will automatically load
  the help file 'ExtFile' and display the page with the label
  'ExtLabel'

!

  Null directive; This seperates pages of multi-page help text
  that can be displayed by Page Down and cannot be accessed directly
  from a page link.

Multiple labels can be placed on a single help page allowing more
than one text link to point to that page.
Multiple directives can be put on a single line by seperating the
commands by commas. eg

    !va_arg:, va_start:, va_end:

There are 3 sets of meta-character brackets that can be placed (in
pairs) in the help text. These can be inserted in text by pressing
Ctrl-P followed by the character. Note the TopSpeed editor has built
in highlighted display of text within these characters to make
editing help text easier (to turn this off you can use Ctrl O C).

The meta-characters are:

Highlight:  CHAR(3) text CHAR(3)   (  text  )

    This caues the text within the brackets to be highlighted and
    is used for help page titles. The meta-characters are
    deleted from the displayed text.

Link:       CHAR(2) label CHAR(2)  ( label )

    This sets up a 'text-link' which allows the user to move
    to the page specified by the label (spaces are not significant
    but case is significant) by selecting this link. The label is
    displayed in inverse (or high-inverse when the help cursor
    is on this link). The meta-characters are deleted.

Ú   a line containing only CHAR(218) starts defining a box the
    width of the page that can be used to surround a title.

À   a line containing only CHAR(192) finishes defining the box


A short example help page
--------------------------

! free:, alloc:,  _heapset=heapinternal
Ú
                void free(void *buffer);
À

header file : alloc.h                  source file : alloc.a

The function free deallocates the block of memory buffer
previously allocated by malloc, calloc or realloc. The number
of bytes freed is that specified by the preceding call to malloc,
calloc or realloc.

Related Functions : calloc,_heapchk,_heapset,malloc,realloc