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.

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.

While brainstorming about a really cool technology that will be implemented into PPL 2.0 next week, I realized that function descriptions that are currently hosted in a standard help file could be put into an xml file which could pop-up the description directly from the code editor. I feel this will make for a better help for developers.

If I leave it in the help file, I will have less control in the end. Maybe if the help file is made of html pages, then I can find a way to display the html page of a function right inside the editor.

The nice thing about having an xml to hold the functions description is that, all the new user-created functions can be part of the help system, without having to merge two help files, it never works well and is cumbersome to do.

What do you guys think is an ideal solution:

1. Regular help file with all functions in it. (Merging two help files is required).
2. Html help with each function description in an seperate file. (Won’t be easy for everone to merge and create help pages)
3. An external .xml file. (User written documentation can be accessible right away).

The xml file will be generated automatically from the project file along side the .ppl library file. The method/property description is a property of the PProperty/PMethod objects. Yes, in PPL 2.0, you create libraries of classes using the visual editor by dragging property components and method components to the object of your choice, PPL will generate an extra property/method for that new object class. If you decide to create your own class, all you have to do is select the “Class” or “Visual Control” from the New Project dialog. This will be part of a video demonstrating this powerful feature later.

Please voice your opinions.