How Standard VDA Tools Connect to Online Help

The set of VDA Tools provided with PV‑WAVE feature a context sensitive online Help system. The online Help that is used is Webworks Help.

To access an online Help topic, a VDA Tool needs to know the name of the Help file and the name of the specific topic to display.

The method TM_HELP activates the Help system and displays a specified topic in the viewer.

Example

The following two calls set attributes that can be retrieved and used in the PV‑WAVE HELP command to call a particular online Help topic.

; This call sets an attribute—the filepath for online Help file.

old_f = TmSetAttribute(tool_name, 'TM_HELP', 'HELP_FILE', $
<filepath>)

; This call sets an attribute—the name of an online Help topic.

old_t = TmSetAttribute(tool_name, 'TM_HELP', 'TOPIC', $
<topic_name>)

The WoGenericDialog function accepts these two attribute settings with the Help keyword and handles calling the HELP command.

; Retrieve the filepath of the online Help file.

file = TmGetAttribute(tool_name, 'TM_HELP', 'HELP_FILE')

; Retrieve the Help topic name.

topic = TmGetAttribute(tool_name, 'TM_HELP', 'TOPIC')

; Display the help topic.

HELP, topic, Filename=file