Re: ANNOUNCE : HelpViewer 0.1

[Björn Giesler]

Hi,

On Tuesday 21 January 2003 12:58, Richard Frith-Macdonald wrote:
> Shouldn't NSHelpPanel basically contain the kind of functionality
> helpviewer has?

Good idea.

The question remains how to properly set up context help such that it can be 
specified in a text (or at least RTF) file. The spec seems to suggest that 
you'd write context help in Interface Builder. I don't like that at all; I'd 
much prefer Nicolas's approach of writing an external file, because that 
would be useable with Renaissance as well, and it's much easier to 
internationalize. However, that would require a way to "name" instances in an 
application so that their help text could be looked up.

I've looked into the NSObject header, and it has the following two lines:

/* - (const char *) name;
   Removed because OpenStep has -(NSString*)name; */


Haven't found this in any of the online docs, though, and there's no -setName: 
method anywhere.

I'd suggest the following:

o Adding a tiny NSObject(UniqueNaming) category:
       @interface NSObject (UniqueNaming)
       - (NSString*) uniqueName;
       - setUniqueName: (NSString*)name;
       @end
  This is so tiny that it could well be part of Renaissance on OSX, assuring
  compatibility.

o Allowing unique object naming from within Gorm and Renaissance files

o Integrating HelpViewer and NSHelpPanel, as Richard suggested

o Writing a ContextHelp.xlp file with <part name=OBJECTNAME> tags

What do you think? Am I completely up the wrong road here?

Regards
                --Björn
-- 
Dipl.-Inform. Björn Giesler, IAIM, University of Karlsruhe (TH)
See http://wwwiaim.ira.uka.de/users/giesler for information.

A society that will trade a little freedom for a little order will 
lose both, and deserves neither.    --T. Jefferson
Support privacy. Mail me for my PGP/GPG public key.