Copyright: Copyright © 2000 Inprise Corporation.                      All rights reserved.                                                 This Help file was compiled on   Thursday, January 13, 2000 15:59:44.


OpenHelp overview

Welcome to Borland OpenHelp, the quickest and easiest way to configure your Windows Help (.HLP) files.

With OpenHelp, you can easily create a Help system that displays only the information you need by adding and removing Help files that will appear in the Help master table of contents and can be accessed through the index or pressing F1.

Your Borland product provides you with a default Help system that displays all the Borland-provided Help files in the master table of contents. Choosing Help|Contents will display this table of contents.

OpenHelp stores information about your Help system in a project. The  project defines a master table of contents, master index, and context-sensitive Help search range for a set of Windows Help files. This default project uses the extension .OHP and is stored in the /Help subdirectory of your installation folder.

If you wish to add or modify information about how your Help information is displayed or accessed, you can use OpenHelp to store information about the:

master table of contents that will appear when you start Help

master index of all the keywords that you need to access though the Help index

context-sensitive search (link) range of all the Help topics available through pressing F1

OpenHelp also allows you to remove references to obsolete Help files from the system registry.


OpenHelp project files

The Open Help project consists of four files:

File	Description

Project file (.OHP)	Lists the files in the project. These files share the contents, index, and context-sensitive Help search range that you define. You open the .OHP file to modify a project.

Contents file (.OHC)	Lists the files that will appear in the master table of contents. Automatically updated when you modify .OHP.

Index file (.OHI)	Lists the files that will be available through in the index. Automatically updated when you modify .OHP.

Link file (.OHL)	Lists the files in the context-sensitive Help search range that will be available through pressing F1. Automatically updated when you modify .OHP.


Working with OpenHelp projects

When you start OpenHelp, an empty project is created automatically. However, you can create a new or edit an existing project at any time.

For example, the project file for your Borland product is stored in the /Help subdirectory of your product installation folder. The project file carries the extension .OHP. To modify the information about the default Help system, choose File|Open project in OpenHelp and select the product .OHP file in your /Help directory. You can also open the project file by choosing Customize from the main Help menu in your product.

The filename for the current project is shown in the caption of the main window.

You can

create a new project

open an existing project

edit the current project

save the current project

The filename for the current project is shown in the caption of the main window.


Creating a project

When you start OpenHelp, an empty project is created automatically. However, you can create a new project at any time.

To create a new project,

Choose File|New.


Opening a project

To open an existing project,

1.	Choose File|Open.

2.	Type or select the name of the project.

3.	Choose OK.


Editing a project

To edit a project, you add or remove files from the project. The files in the project share the table of contents, index, and context-sensitive Help search range that you define. The files in the project must be Windows Help Contents (.CNT) files.

To add a file to the project,

1.	Select the Project tab.

2.	Choose Edit|Add.

3.	Select or type the names of one or more the Windows Help Contents files to add.

4.	Choose OK.

To remove a file from the project,

1.	Select the Project tab.

2.	Select the files to remove.

3.	Choose Edit|Remove.


Saving a project

To save a project under the current filename,

Choose File|Save.

To save a project under a new filename,

1.	Choose File|Save As.

2.	Type the name of the project.

3.	Choose OK.

For convenience, you may want to save all OpenHelp projects in the OpenHelp directory.


Adding and removing files from the master table of contents

The master table of contents is displayed when you start any of the Help files in the project and choose the Contents tab.

The master table of contents contains Table of Contents (.TOC) files, which are simply Windows Contents (.CNT) files without INCLUDE statements. For more information about Windows Contents files, see the Help Compiler Workshop Help (HCW.HLP).

To add files to the master table of contents,

1.	Choose the Contents tab.

2.	Choose Edit|Add.

3.	Select or type the names of one or more Table of Contents (.TOC) files to add.

4.	Choose OK.

To remove files from the master table of contents,

1.	Choose the Contents tab.

2.	Select the files to remove.

3.	Choose Edit|Remove.


Adding files to the master index
Adding and removing files from the master index

The master index is displayed when you start any of the Help files in the project and choose the Index tab.

The master table of contents contains references to Windows Help (.HLP) files.

To add files to the master index,

1.	Choose the Index tab.

2.	Choose Edit|Add.

3.	Select or type the names of the Windows Help (.HLP) files to add.

4.	Choose OK.

To remove files from the master table of contents,

1.	Choose the Index tab.

2.	Select the files to remove.

3.	Choose Edit|Remove.


Adding and removing files from the context-sensitive Help search (link) range

The context-sensitive Help search range consists of Help files that are accessible for ALink jumps. ALink jumps are often used to access Help topics across Help files. ALink jumps can also be used in context-sensitive Help invoked from an application. For example, Borland C++Builder and Delphi use ALink jumps to access the Help system when you press F1 in the Object Inspector or the code editor.

For more information about ALink jumps, see the Help Compiler Workshop Help (HCW.HLP) file.

The context-sensitive Help search range consists of references to Windows Help (.HLP) files.

To add files to the context-sensitive Help search range,

1.	Choose the Link tab.

2.	Choose Edit|Add.

3.	Select or type the names of the Windows Help (.HLP) files to add.

4.	Choose OK.

To remove files from the context-sensitive Help search range,

1.	Choose the Index tab.

2.	Select the files to remove.

3.	Choose Edit|Remove.


Removing references to obsolete Help files from the system registry
Cleaning up the system registry

The system registry and the WINHELP.INI file often become cluttered with references to obsolete Help files. You can quickly remove references to obsolete Help files by cleaning up the registry.

To clean up the system registry,

Choose File|Clean Registry.

The registry is automatically updated.