Programming Tasks

Writing OLIT and XView help is very similar. In either case, your application provides the text appropriate for a widget or object, respectively. The OpenWindows window manager determines which application is responsible when the user presses the Help key, and dispatches an event to that application.

OLIT has a specialized Help widget, and XView has a Help frame, that puts the right information into the Help dialog display area and makes the dialog appear on the screen. You either have to include a function call to OLRegisterHelp() in OLIT, or set an object attribute in XView, to enable help on a widget (object).

To provide CDE help with your application, you must:

1. Establish help callbacks on all relevant widgets.

   These callbacks must be able to provide the help information for the associated widgets.

2. Create and manage the help dialogs.

   CDE provides DtHelpDialog and DtHelpQuickDialog widgets to create help dialog boxes and quick help dialogs. CDE has one shared help dialog that displays help.

3. Implement on item help.

   Common Desktop Environment: Help System Author's and Programmer's Guide provides source code to do this.