1<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"><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="id2939869"></a>Developer Information</h3><p> 2 This section is for developers. Documentation authors 3 generally do not need to know this material. 4 </p></div><p> 5 Typically the application manual and possibly additional help 6 documents will be made available to the user under the 7 Help menu at the top right of the 8 application. To do this, you must first write a 9 <tt>topic.dat</tt> file. The format for this file is: 10 <pre class="programlisting"> 11One line for each 'topic'. 12 13Two columns, as defined by perl -e 'split(/\s+/,$aline,2)' 14 15First column is the HTML file (and optional section) for the topic, 16relative to the app's help file dir. 17 18Second column is the user-visible topic name. 19 </pre> 20 For example, Gnumeric's 21 <tt>topic.dat</tt> file is: 22 <pre class="programlisting"> 23gnumeric.html Gnumeric manual 24function-reference.html Gnumeric function reference 25 </pre> 26 When the application is installed, the 27 <tt>topic.dat</tt> file should be placed in the 28 <tt>$prefix/share/gnome/help/<i><tt>appname</tt></i>/C/</tt> directory 29 where <i><tt>appname</tt></i> is replaced by the 30 application's name. The application documentation (converted 31 from SGML into HTML with <b>db2html</b>) should be 32 placed in this directory too. 33 </p><div class="note" style="margin-left: 0.5in; margin-right: 0.5in;"><h3 class="title"><a name="id2940058"></a>Note</h3><p> 34 If the help files are not present in the correct directory, the 35 menu items will NOT appear when the program is run. 36 </p></div><p> 37 The <tt>topic.dat</tt> file is used by the GNOME 38 menu building code to generate the Help 39 menu. When you define your menu: 40<pre class="programlisting"> 41GnomeUIInfo helpmenu[] = { 42 {GNOME_APP_UI_ITEM, 43 N_("About"), N_("Info about this program"), 44 about_cb, NULL, NULL, 45 GNOME_APP_PIXMAP_STOCK, GNOME_STOCK_MENU_ABOUT, 46 0, 0, NULL}, 47 GNOMEUIINFO_SEPARATOR, 48 GNOMEUIINFO_HELP("<i>appname</i>"), 49 GNOMEUIINFO_END 50 }; 51</pre> 52 the line specifying <tt>GNOMEUIINFO_HELP</tt> causes 53 GNOME to create a menu entry which is tied to the documentation 54 in the directory mentioned above. Also, all the topics in the 55 <tt>topic.dat</tt> file will get menu entries in the 56 Help menu. When the user selects any of these 57 topics from the Help menu, a help browser 58 will be started with the associated HTML documentation. 59 </p></div><div class="navfooter"><hr><table width="100%" summary="Navigation footer"><tr><td width="40%" align="left"><a href="indexs06.html">Prev</a>�</td><td width="20%" align="center"><a href="index.html">Home</a></td><td width="40%" align="right">�<a href="indexs08.html">Next</a></td></tr><tr><td width="40%" align="left">Writing Application and Applet Manuals�</td><td width="20%" align="center"><a href="index.html">Up</a></td><td width="40%" align="right">�Application Help Buttons</td></tr></table></div></body></html> 60