Context Sensitive Help for OpenCPN

[r.fairman]

As OpenCPN matures now may be a good time to implement context sensitive Help. Many of the support type questions on the forum are easily answered by the excellent OpenCPN documentation. The advantage of a HTML Help file is that it is seachable and can be made context sensitive I have created a HTML Help file from the existing documentation for the latest beta realease here is the link

https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B3S...thkey=COCXuMgO

If you are using Vista or 7 you will need the Microsoft Html Help Viewer If you are using Linux you need xchm and on Mac the Cocoa chm viewer

The help file is just a straght conversion from the documentation It has lost a few links and needs tidying up.

To implement context help in OpenCPN we can use the F1 key or add a help button to each dialog box. If it is implemented I will need to add context ids to each topic so the correct topic is pulled.

I am happy to caryout the conversions to help for each main or beta release for testing


regards

Richard Fairman

[r.fairman]

Sorry wrong link in previous post Please try this one

https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B3S...thkey=CICE84cG

Regards

Richard

[CarCode]

Richard,

correct, OpenCPN becomes more complex now. I have reworked its build-in help file already a little bit: OpenCPN User Manual

Did you know the build-in help works also in other languages? Another file called help_de_DE.html e.g. for german in the doc folder will do: OpenCPN Handbuch

Mac OS X has already a build-in help system. This is context sensitive and has a search function. The Cocoa chm viewer is not usable and looks rather ugly. The final stable Mac OS X version will use the help system of the OS. Actually OpenCPN for Mac OS X is still a Beta.

To do a real context sensitive help for Windows or Linux however there are needed to place some anchors in the OpenCPN code.

Gerhard