The following paragraphs describe the boundaries of long help text and short help text for the Menu-Assisted Resource Control (MARC) interface, the Interactive Menugraph Generator (IMG), and the Interactive Datacomm Configurator (IDC), and for the SECTION and KEYWORD commands.
Long Help Text Boundaries
The keywords in the KEYWORD command mark the only points where a user can access long help text. The KEYWORD command links keywords to the first line in a section of long help text, or, in the case of secondary keywords, the command links keywords to lines of text that fall within a section of help text.
In MARC and programs that access help· text in a similar way, when a user requests help information, the entire help book section containing that
information is made available to the user. The first line of help text displayed for the user is the line of text linked to the keyword that was used to access the information.
Help Utility, Help Text, and Source Files
As a result, if a secondary keyword is used to access help text, the first line displayed for the user is a line from within a section of help text. Whether the keyword used to access information is a secondary keyword or a keyword linked to the first line of a section, the user can use the plus (+) and minus (-) actions to scroll through the entire section of help text.
Short Help Text Boundaries
Short help text is different from long help text in the following ways:
• Short help text is displayed on the last two lines of the screen from which help was requested.
• Two lines of short help text are always displayed.
You can set the boundaries of short help text by using either the SECTION command or the KEYWORD command.
Short Help Text with SECTION Command Boundaries
As with long help text, each segment of.short help text can begin with a
SECTION command and one or more KEYWORD commands. If used in short help, the SECTION command for one segment of short help text marks the end of the preceding segment of short help text. When the user requests short help, the Help Utility retrieves the entire segment of short help text-all the text between two successive SECTION commands.·
The text is displayed according to the following rules:
• If there is only one line of short help text between the SECTION commands, that line of text and a second line that is blank (empty of any text) are displayed to the user.
• If there are two or more lines of short help text between the SECTION
commands, only the first two lines of text are displayed to the user. Since the user cannot scroll within short help, any extra lines are never displayed.
Note that even though SECTION commands appear in a source file of short help text, short help section titles are never displayed to the user.
Short Help Text with KEYWORD Command Boundaries
The KEYWORD command provides another method for marking the leading boundaries of segments of short help text. This method requires that each segment begin with a KEYWORD command. The command indicates only where the short help text begins, not where it ends. When the user requests short help, the Help Utility retrieves the short help text beginning with the first line of text following the KEYWORD command, and if no SECTION commands appear first, ending with the last line of short help text in the help book.
Help Utility, Help Text, and Source Flies
The text is displayed according to the following rules:
• If only one line of short help text appears between KEYWORD commands and the next KEYWORD command appears on the line immediately following the first, that one line 'of text and the first line of text following the next
KEYWORD command are displayed. The Help Utility does not recognize the next KEYWORD command as marking the end of the segment of short help text.
• If there are two or more lines of short help text between the KEYWORD commands, only the first two lines of text are displayed to the user. Any extra lines will never be seen as short help text.
Because the Help Utility always displays two lines of short help text, in order for this method of marking boundaries to succeed, any time there is only one line of short help text between KEYWORD commands, you must add a second blank.
Example 1-1 shows short help text with KEYWORD command boundaries .
• ORGANIZATION FLAT
.COMMENT THE ORGANIZATION COMMAND MUST COME BEFORE THE FIRST .COMMENT SECTION COMMAND .
• SECTION II II
.COMMENT A SECTION COMMAND IS REQUIRED AT THE BEGINNING OF ANY .COMMENT SOURCE FILE OF HELP TEXT OR SHORT HELP TEXT .
• KEYWORD menucopy
This selection is the first step in copying a menu or form from a different menugraph to the current menugraph .
. KEYWORD hmenucrea
Example 1-1. Short Help Text with KEYWORD Command Boundaries
Help Utility, Help Text, and Source Files