How to control context help?

[Mentos]

Hello everybody,

I'm thinking about adding some online help to my application and got the following questions:

1) I'd like to add a link to the .chm help file on the context help of my controls, just like the "Detailed Help" on the context help of the Labview functions. How can this be done?

2) Is there some elegant way to read & display the context help of all my controls and indicators from an external file instead of typing the specific context help for each control? This way I can change the displayed help without actually touching the code.

I noticed the Description property, but I'm looking for something else.

3) Is there any way to make the context help more "joyful", that is, add animations or pictures\change fonts and colors etc.?

4) Can anybody recommend a good tool for creating help files (that will be called from Labview later on) ?

Thanks in advance for any idea!

[smercurio_fc]

Have you looked in the LabVIEW Help?

Fundamentals -> Documenting and Printing VIs -> How-To -> Documenting VIs -> Creating and Editing VI Descriptions. Item #4 indicates linking to an external help file.

The above applies to controls/indicators as well.

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Mentos wrote:

3) Is there any way to make the context help more "joyful", that is, add animations or pictures\change fonts and colors etc.?

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You can do that in your HTML documentation files.

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4) Can anybody recommend a good tool for creating help files (that will be called from Labview later on) ?

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Did you try a search? This question has been asked many times before. http://forums.ni.com/t5/forums/searchpage/tab/message?filter=location&location=Board%3A170&q=create+...

You can also read this thread over at LAVA: http://lavag.org/topic/15041-best-way-to-generate-chm-files/

[Mentos]

Hello Smercurio,

Thanks for the useful tips.

Regarding the linking option - I see the Help path and Help tag fields on the VI documentation properties, but I don't see the same options on a control/indicator documentation properties.

What did you mean by "The above applies to controls/indicators as well"? Can I link a specific control/indicator somehow or just add its documentation to its VI help file ?

What I really need is to be able to link each control/indicator to a help file rather than searching it in the VI documentation.

Is this possible?

[Mentos]

Another question regarding the title of the displayed context help:

The control label is shown as the title of its context help.

However, sometimes the control label is different from the text the user sees. For example, a toggle switch might have "ON" & "OFF" text besides it while its (unseen) label might be "State". In this case, displaying the description of this control with "State" as the title might be a bit confusing for the user.

Is there any way to interfere and change the context help title (instead of the control's label) ?

Is there any way for showing the context help of a control WITHOUT any title, just the description itself?

[smercurio_fc]

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@Mentos wrote:
Regarding the linking option - I see the Help path and Help tag fields on the VI documentation properties, but I don't see the same options on a control/indicator documentation properties.

What did you mean by "The above applies to controls/indicators as well"? Can I link a specific control/indicator somehow or just add its documentation to its VI help file ?

What I really need is to be able to link each control/indicator to a help file rather than searching it in the VI documentation.

Is this possible?

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Sorry for not being clear. I was referring to having the Description and Tip available for controls. There is no direct way to link to your won Help file when the Context Window is open and hovering over a control. What you can do is to customize the run-time shortcut menu for the control/indicator and add a "Help" menu item. Then in your code you can detect the menu selection and open the help file to the appropriate topic.

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The control label is shown as the title of its context help.

However, sometimes the control label is different from the text the user sees. For example, a toggle switch might have "ON" & "OFF" text besides it while its (unseen) label might be "State". In this case, displaying the description of this control with "State" as the title might be a bit confusing for the user.

Is there any way to interfere and change the context help title (instead of the control's label) ?

Is there any way for showing the context help of a control WITHOUT any title, just the description itself?

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Unfortunately, you cannot change the fact that the label is shown in the Context Help window.

Frankly, the Context Help window is in need of a dire overhaul. There have been several ideas proposed so far in the LabVIEW Idea Exchange.

[Mentos]

Hi Smercurio,

Customizing the run-time shortcut menu looks like a nice idea.

Thanks for the tip!

[Mentos]

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Hello Smercurio,

I'm trying to work with the Control Online help function and it doesn't really work as I expected:

1) It works for some keywords on my documents and doesn't work for others. (My document was converted from Word into a CHM file using RoboHelp. Any chance the conversion is not OK?)

2) I'm not able to jump to a multi-level index keyword. I saw there's an old thread (and CAR#) regarding this (http://forums.ni.com/t5/LabVIEW/Odd-Behavior-with-quot-Control-Online-Help-quot-Function/m-p/792866#...

Do you know if there's anything new regarding this bug?

3) I'm using the function simply as shown in the attached picture. Am I doing something wrong?

BR,

Mentos.

[smercurio_fc]

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@Mentos wrote:

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Hello Smercurio,

I'm trying to work with the Control Online help function and it doesn't really work as I expected:

1) It works for some keywords on my documents and doesn't work for others. (My document was converted from Word into a CHM file using RoboHelp. Any chance the conversion is not OK?)

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It's possible, but I can't say for sure since I don't know what your CHM file looks like, or what keywords work or don't work. If you upload the CHM file I might be able to figure it out.

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2) I'm not able to jump to a multi-level index keyword. I saw there's an old thread (and CAR#) regarding this (http://forums.ni.com/t5/LabVIEW/Odd-Behavior-with-quot-Control-Online-Help-quot-Function/m-p/792866#...

Do you know if there's anything new regarding this bug?

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As far as I can tell this bug still exists. The thread you linked to provides a workaround.

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 3) I'm using the function simply as shown in the attached picture. Am I doing something wrong?

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That is the correct funtion.

[Mentos]

Hi Smercurio,

The work around wasn't so clear to me since I'm not familiar with HTML.

Since the Word document I compiled in RoboHelp actually creates only 1 html file It looks like I can use the work around like this to browse for key words INSIDE the htm file:

File Name.htm#key word name

The above seems to work.

However, I noticed that while the "right side" of che CHM file displays the desired topic, the "left side"/"content side" remains closed. This of course doesn't look too good.

How can I make the content side open accordingly?

[smercurio_fc]

Using "File Name.htm#key word name" is a URL that has an anchor as part of its address. That's not the same thing as using the index entry. Thus, the left pane won't update automatically.