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<html><head><meta content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" http-equiv="Content-Type"><title>Listing Documents in the Help Menu</title><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.40"><link rel="home" href="index.html" title="The GNOME Handbook of Writing Software Documentation"><link rel="up" href="index.html" title="The GNOME Handbook of Writing Software Documentation"><link rel="previous" href="indexs06.html" title="Writing Application and Applet Manuals"><link rel="next" href="indexs08.html" title="Application Help Buttons"></head><body bgcolor="white" text="black" link="#0000FF" vlink="#840084" alink="#0000FF"><div class="navheader"><table width="100%" summary="Navigation header"><tr><th colspan="3" align="center">Listing Documents in the Help Menu</th></tr><tr><td width="20%" align="left"><a href="indexs06.html">Prev</a> </td><th width="60%" align="center"> </th><td width="20%" align="right"> <a href="indexs08.html">Next</a></td></tr></table><hr></div><div class="sect1"><a name="listingdocsinhelpmenu"></a><div class="titlepage"><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both"><a name="listingdocsinhelpmenu"></a>Listing Documents in the Help Menu</h2></div></div><div class="note" style="margin-left: 0.5in; margin-right: 0.5in;"><h3 class="title"><a name="id2909970"></a>Developer Information</h3><p>
This section is for developers. Documentation authors
generally do not need to know this material.
</p></div><p>
Typically the application manual and possibly additional help
documents will be made available to the user under the
Help menu at the top right of the
application. To do this, you must first write a
<tt>topic.dat</tt> file. The format for this file is:
<pre class="programlisting">
One line for each 'topic'.
Two columns, as defined by perl -e 'split(/\s+/,$aline,2)'
First column is the HTML file (and optional section) for the topic,
relative to the app's help file dir.
Second column is the user-visible topic name.
</pre>
For example, Gnumeric's
<tt>topic.dat</tt> file is:
<pre class="programlisting">
gnumeric.html Gnumeric manual
function-reference.html Gnumeric function reference
</pre>
When the application is installed, the
<tt>topic.dat</tt> file should be placed in the
<tt>$prefix/share/gnome/help/<i><tt>appname</tt></i>/C/</tt> directory
where <i><tt>appname</tt></i> is replaced by the
application's name. The application documentation (converted
from SGML into HTML with <b>db2html</b>) should be
placed in this directory too.
</p><div class="note" style="margin-left: 0.5in; margin-right: 0.5in;"><h3 class="title"><a name="id2910161"></a>Note</h3><p>
If the help files are not present in the correct directory, the
menu items will NOT appear when the program is run.
</p></div><p>
The <tt>topic.dat</tt> file is used by the GNOME
menu building code to generate the Help
menu. When you define your menu:
<pre class="programlisting">
GnomeUIInfo helpmenu[] = {
{GNOME_APP_UI_ITEM,
N_("About"), N_("Info about this program"),
about_cb, NULL, NULL,
GNOME_APP_PIXMAP_STOCK, GNOME_STOCK_MENU_ABOUT,
0, 0, NULL},
GNOMEUIINFO_SEPARATOR,
GNOMEUIINFO_HELP("<i>appname</i>"),
GNOMEUIINFO_END
};
</pre>
the line specifying <tt>GNOMEUIINFO_HELP</tt> causes
GNOME to create a menu entry which is tied to the documentation
in the directory mentioned above. Also, all the topics in the
<tt>topic.dat</tt> file will get menu entries in the
Help menu. When the user selects any of these
topics from the Help menu, a help browser
will be started with the associated HTML documentation.
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