We have just given a job to a technical writer from elance.com. We should have a completed manual by the end of December. It won’t be a PDF or anything like that, it will be fully integrated in the IDE and fully search able. We might add the option to generate a PDF document so that we can provide a physical book for the customers that would like it.

After that we need to give out another job to someone who will fix the internal functions help topics. This should be a small job.

Even if ArianeSoft is financially in trouble right now, I am still able to put energy into PPL 2.0.

Here are some features that have been added to PPL 2.0 recently:

• Ability to open multiple projects at once.
• Tag searching
• Components list is displayed into categories.
• Instant help dock window for immediate help display by moving the mouse over code, objects, properties, events, etc… You can also use the F1 key to obtain a regular help page.

Here are some screen shots of the instant help feature:

Even though life is trying hard to put me down, I won’t let it work its nasty tricks on me.

I have worked on the Tag search engine today and man does it look and work great. The Help Engine is also getting revamped a little bit to give it some boost. From the code completion you can get the full help page as a hint window, very very handy.

I have also worked on the Help Engine, Search feature which searches through all the help pages in HTML for user defined strings.

The code completion window has also been revamped to display using the syntax highlighting that the code editor uses (looks very nice now).

Here is the Help Engine Index:

Finding by tag with help engine hint window activated:

The Code Completion with help engine hint window activated:

Finding text in all help engine pages:

Finally the docking system is working and the skin is matching my requirements.

And the help engine is looking pretty good now. The main concept of it is to allow identical pages throughout all files, meaning that if a third party component developer provides help for his project, it will look just like all other help files. Simplicity is the key as well here.

I have also created a script that will import pages from the PPL v1.x help file and put the information in the right fields so I don’t have to redo the documentation for all that has already been done. The more time I save the more time I have working on PPL 2.0 program.

Finally, the docking is working great. I am just waiting for the new skin components to get delivered to me so that I can customize the display of the dock panels captions to my liking. What a relief!

Next on the list, importing all the old help file functions descriptions so that I don’t have to re-type them manually.

If things go as planned, I might be able to work on some other neat things, like embedding object codes directly in the generated class definition.

Example:

#class MyClass
  public proc MyFunc (a$)
    ShowMessage(a$);
  end;
#endclass

Instead of:

#class MyClass
#endclass

public proc MyClass.MyFunc(a$)
  ShowMessage(a$);
end;

Tag searching is the next big project I will be working on. You will be able to search for components, properties, events, methods and functions using tags. Very handy. I will post some screen shots later.

I am still working very hard on this new help system. It is really shaping up to be one of a kind. Now, it creates an index table (searchable) andit creates a nice Table of Contents automatically. There will be enhancements to allow development of user’s manuals as well as references to functions/procedures and classes/properties/events/methods. You can define Topics manually now and choose to include it in the table of contents or not. I will implement an easy way to link topics together and add images very easily.

The code examples are now being generated on the fly as jpg images with full syntax highligthing, very nice feature. I will also implement custom tags to generate syntax highlighted code images to be embedded into your description.

Example:

The main user interface is made up of 5 panels. #img=Main.jpg Adding images to your help system will support Pasting (ctrl+v) directly in the text editor and the image will be formatted and saved with your help file.

Another example:

#begincode
For (i$ = 1 to 10)
  ShowMessage(i$);
end;
#endcode

If you need more information, check the following topic #topic=5894722, you can also link topic by name, #topic=”Application.Caption”.

There will be a Topic chooser dialog to simplify the task of selecting topics to link to. As the page gets generated to HTML, it will convert the special tags to be user friendly.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot, when you import component definition file or a PPL file to the help system, it will analyse your parameters and set default descriptions for you and assign See Also topics, as well as automatically detecting Tags based on the name of the Function, Procedure, Property, Event or Class name. These features can be enhanced to your liking by editing the following two files:

• DefaultParams.txt
• DefaultTags.txt

The DefaultTags.txt file, uses advanced regular expression to analyse the name of the item being scanned.

I still have lot of work to do on this help system but I really think it is worth it big time. It is revolutionary from a programmer’s view point.

The main goal of this system is to simplify documentating your components and code libraries to a maximum.

Sorry for this long incomprehensible post, I will use it as development notes as well!

Here we go again, some screenshots of the latest help viewer. The HTML code has been rearranged, it now looks better. The Importers (from component file or ppl file) are done.

Ok, now it’s time for some time with the family for the weekend. See ya all next week.

The help file editor with importers so you don’t have to scan your source files to manually add classes, methods, properties, events, etc…

Here is the Help Viewer. The underlying structure of each help file is automatically generated by the development environment from the .HLP (XML) file created with the Help file editor.

After many hours spent on this new help file editor, I can show you a first screen shot of this wonderful tool in action. Help files will be XML structured files with the file extension .HLP. Based on the information in the files, PPL will generated HTML Help files on the fly automatically. This way you can easily write and distribute help content with your components without having to use a third party help file editor (some are quite expansive). You need to perform help file merges and all help content on screen will be 100% consistent for all components and functions.

It has the ability to import from a component description file (XML structured file as well) and will soon have the ability to import from .PPL files, parsing the file and extracting all functions, procedures, classes, etc… You just then have to fill in the blanks.

Of course it is very early, the editor will be improved on in the following weeks.

Here is the PAsm component description XML data:

<help>
<name>PAsm</name>
<classname>PAsm</classname>
<filename>PAsm.html</filename>
<type>0</type>
<tags>assembler pasm call</tags>
<description>This component allows you to call PPL assembly code.</description>
<paramdescription>Code$ = Provide code to be executed as you create the object.</paramdescription>
<example>a$ = new PAsm;
a.Code = {
mov r0, 10
};
a.Execute;
a.Free;</example>
<seealso>PObject</seealso>
</help>

I have some new screen shots of the help file system for you today guys. I have also decided to make the help file source files (xml) separated from the component xml file. I will work on a help file editor today that will allow to import from .ppl and PPL 2.0 project files. It will import, classes, procedures, functions, etc… for you automatically.

What a day so far. Wow. I was able to implement so much stuff, it’s inhuman. I need to go home now, tonight I play drums with my band (like every Wednesday). Cannot wait!

Here is the help file viewer that will be part of PPL 2.0. The help content is entirely generated by the PIDE in pure HTML format. It will generate all the links (properties, events, methods, see also links) automatically.

Here is the XML data for the PResource component. You can design this component directly from the PPL integrated development environment, no need to know anything about XML.

<class>
<name>PResource</name>
<inherit>PObject</inherit>
<icon>data.bmp</icon>
<category>File</category>
<childof>Root</childof>
<defaultproperty>RawData</defaultproperty>
<autocreate>true</autocreate>
<tags>resource</tags>
<description>Allow you to store file’s data of any kind right into your project. Make sure the size of the data is not too large, your project loading time will suffer greatly.</description>
<seealso>RawData</seealso>
<properties>
<Section>Content</Section>
<RawData>
<type>resource</type>
<tags>data resource</tags>
<description>This property contains all the data of the resource.</description>
</RawData>
</properties>
</class>

Of course the description is only there for testing purposes for now. But you can see that just providing a name in the <seealso> tag will generate the right help page.

Later this week I will be working on the TAG search feature. I will re-use the code completion form for consistency.