G'day,
I've been puzzled for some time about how they code in the help
section of GUIs those funny looking purple bookie thingies that when
you click on them they open up and there are sub-sections with
questions marks on pages that open and advice is given about how to do
things.
The reason I'm asking about this, is that the game I'm working on
may need some explaining, probably only about 5 pages, but it could be
more by the time I'm finished.
It'll probably only need the "Contents" and won't need the"Index" or
"Search" sections.
Does anybody know the whereabouts of some code dealing in this
problem. The code doesn't have to be in Python, maybe C or Java or
whatever as long as one can see how they're achieving things, then
that's good enough.
Thanks in advance for any help.

fredzik.

Sorry, I don't really know what you are talking about. I have never seen those purple thingies.

Hello,

If one has Window's Xp or 98 etc, go to start, WordPad or Notepad then under the "Help" section go to "Help Topics" and walla!we have purple books...it may be that you have Mac or Linux, I know Linux (ubuntu) and from what I remember (a year ago) it didn't have these "Purple Books", but don't know anything at all about Mac so can't say.

Hope this clears things up.

fredzik.

Hello again,

Actually, the directions are thus...Start, Accessories, then Notepad or WordPad. I use both of these quite a lot and because they're used a lot they are automatically put in the start area by XP...but I forgot that most people don't use these programs quite as frequently as I do. Therefore I've given you their normal use whereabouts.

Bye.

fredzik.

Hi,
I think I understand what you are asking for... i.e, you want to have a help for your game in menu/link/button or in some kind. Ok, what you can do is... there are many tools to create help files(*.chm) in HTML format. i.e, as you said in the later post notepad or wordpad in WinXP, when press Ctrl+h, you get widow opened with help file. You can create a help file(.CHM) and in you game you can give an option in the menu for help(Ctrl-h). So when user clicks for help open the file, which will open in a seperate window.

The purple thing, the question icon, search and contents tabs are all comes when you create the .chm file.

Hope this helps you.

kath.

Hi Katharnakh,

Yes, good work! The game I'm working on will need to have a small "Help" book type of section with 5 to 10 pages. It will probably reside where the "Help" widget is on most GUI's.

Also, you said "there are many tools to create help files(*.chm) in HTML format..." do you happen to know where these "tools" would be located on the net, so that I can download one and try it out?

Thanks for your great input Katharnakh, it's much appreciated.


from "Purple books" fredzik.

Hi,

I used RoboHelp for creating the same. But I could not find the same on the net. So pls use or search by yourself on net, im sure you can will find it.

Never mind, try these links to get the tool as well as some knowledge on creating help(.CHM) files.

http://www.fast-help.com/
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/or...362731033.aspx

Hope this will help you.

regards,
kath.

Hi again Katharnakh,

Thanks again for your quick response. I'll be looking at these and possibly others and make a choice about which one is to be used, RoboHelp sounds interesting and I may look at that as well. Looks like you've developed a game or something else where you've used it...I wouldn't have a clue how to use one as it's all new territory for me, but I'm sure I'll get the hang of it pretty quickly.

A clueless fredzik.