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Help for Buttons
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Help for Buttons


  • Subject: Help for Buttons
  • From: "Gerriet M. Denkmann" <email@hidden>
  • Date: Sun, 17 Apr 2005 12:52:51 +0700

>From time to time I encounter a button (or menu item) in an application which I do not fully understand.
I put the mouse on it, wait, and get the tool-tip explanation, which might not suffice.
Now there are two ways to proceed:

(A) - my dream:
I hit the help-key (or some equivalent for keyboards without a help key), the cursor turns into a question-mark, I hit the button (or menu item) I am interested in and the appropriate help page opens on the right point.

(B) - the sad reality:
I open help and type: "What does the copy-button in the advanced-tab in the inspector window do?" then go through the list of help items and when I'm lucky get the information I am looking for among the top three.

So two questions: Is this dream of mine (direct access from UI-item to help) just a silly and useless idea?

And, if not: how could I implement such a behaviour in my own applications?
Subclassing all NSControls and building IB-palettes for them is probably just too much work.
But what to do instead?
I would like to have (settable in IB) - parallel to the tool-tip text - a field with a help anchor, which leads to the relevant section in help.

There is already in the documentation: "applications enter context-sensitive mode when the user presses the Help key" and: "In this mode, the cursor becomes a question mark, and help appears for any user interface item the user clicks."
But - as far as I can see - only NSAlert has: "<x-tad-bigger>- (void)setHelpAnchor:(</x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger>NSString</x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger> *)</x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger>anchor</x-tad-bigger>".

The NSHelpManager has: "<x-tad-bigger>- (void)setContextHelp:(</x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger>NSAttributedString</x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger> *)</x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger>help</x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger> forObject:(id)</x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger>object</x-tad-bigger>", but this seems to be just a tool-tip text on steroids (using an NSAttributedString instead of the NSString in NSView's setToolTip:), which is shown when I click on a view with the ?-cursor.

NSResponder has: "<x-tad-bigger>- (void)showContextHelp:(id)</x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger>sender</x-tad-bigger>" which is never called.
And also: "<x-tad-bigger>- (void)helpRequested:(</x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger>NSEvent</x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger> *)</x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger>theEvent</x-tad-bigger>", which is called when I click on a view with the ?-cursor.

All this leaves me quite confused. Maybe someone has some better ideas.


Kind regards,

Gerriet.
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