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Iana V. Gaponenko BINP, Russia
The Help Browser is an X-based interrogative help system. It aims to provide on-line help information derived from the so-called Command Definition File (CDF) on which KUIP is based. The browser was developed in the context of the Tk/Tcl version of PAW, which will be released for the Windows 95 and Windows/NT platforms early in 1996.
Due to the general approach used, the Help Browser can equally be used in other KUIP-based applications, such as GEANT, FATMEN, etc.
The Help Browser is flexible and may be customized by the user according to his desires. Help can be browsed either for a particular KUIP-based application or for a set of applications. The Help Browser provides a detailed approach to viewing the information: both the hierarchical structure of the commands, and the windowed information on a particular command are provided. The user may open as many such windows as he wishes. Printing facilities are also provided with the Help Browser.
The Help Browser is written in Tk/Tcl and provides a Motif-like user interface. In addition to the standard Tk toolkit, the ``tree widget'' has also been used. This allows the user to navigate through the command hierarchy presented in the graphical tree presented in the Help Browser window. A regular expression ``search '' command provides quick access to specific information.
In addition, hyperlinks via WWW are optionally available to access Web-based information about the application. The Help Browser can be configured to start either the tkWWW browser or a preferred WWW browser, e.g. Netscape, Mosaic , etc.
The Help Browser consists of three parts. Firstly, there is a the usual windowing shell ``wish '' linked with the ``tree'' widget and the CDF access library. Secondly, there is a Tcl
script for automatically building the Help Browser interface. Thirdly, there are the Command Definition Files used as the source of the Help information.
The Help Browser is invoked with the command ``cdfhelp '', and configured by a file .Cdfhelp in the user's home directory or in the current working directory. For example, to browse help on GEANT the .Cdfhelp file should contain the following:
/usr/cern/pro/src/cdf/geant.cdf
More details are provided in the README file which is part of the distributed Help Browser package.
Users who are interested in beta-testing the Help Browser before it is released in the CERN Program Library (as part of the KUIP2TCL package), are invited to contact cernlib@cern.ch.