Help is available to the User of an Application Program in several ways.
Each Verb Group may have associated with it a Help Text File using the same
format as a normal VAX/VMS Help File.
Note that such a file should only contain information about the Verbs within
a Group, and a separate file should be defined for each Verb Group within a
complex program.
If such a Help File is not defined, then only a restricted help is available,
being limited to a display of the Verbs within the Group, together with a list
of their Qualifiers. Each Menu contains inherently some basic help information,
being the descriptive text on each Menu Button, and this may be combined
with Verb Help if so desired.
The question mark character ``?" is used as a ``Request for Help" from the
User of an Application Program. Its action may be modified in several ways by
concatenating it with a word.
Help requests are hierarchical, such that the information for each Verb
may be split into sections giving more detailed information about subtopics
associated with the Verb. After displaying the Help information, the User
will be prompted to supply a new subtopic. A null response (just hitting the
``Return" key) will backup to the previous level, whilst typing Ctrl-Z (on
a VAX) will return immediately to the Application Program.
In addition to the above, there is a Subprogram (UI_GET_HELP) that may be
used to prompt for a topic (a Verb within the currently setup Verb Group)
and then display the Help Information associated with that topic.
Help information will be displayed in different manners depending on the
current mode of operation of UIPACK. In Prompted and Scroll Mode, Help
information is directly displayed on the screen, scrolling until the screen is
full or all the help information has been displayed. If the screen becomes full
the operator may request more help information by hitting the RETURN key.
In Viewport Modes, Help information is displayed within a Viewport on the screen
(see the later Section on Viewports for discussion of their use) rather than
scrolling the complete screen.
Help facilities are discussed in detail in Chapter 8.