Installing Help in the IDE

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The files needed from Kylix3

When I finally gave up on Borland and switched to Lazarus, I was dismayed to find that the familiar help system was missing. I have gotten use to just typing in a function / keyword, then hitting CTRL-F1 to bring up the help to see what the parameters were to be. This will show you how to use the Kylix context sensitive help system with a linux installation of lazarus.

Since many of you have been coding in Kylix, you probably already have these files "lying around someplace". I suspect that the help system from the free version of kylix may work as well under this outline? These are the files and directorys needed from the ${HOME}/Kylix/help:

bin/           k3clx.hlp     k3dbd.cnt    k3.hlp
foo            k3.cnt        k3dbd.fts    k3indy.cnt
foo~           k3copts.cnt   k3dbd.hlp    k3indy.fts
hhintro.txt    k3copts.fts   k3dbx.cnt    k3indy.hlp
hoh.cnt        k3copts.hlp   k3dbx.fts    k3iota.cnt
hoh.fts        k3crtl.cnt    k3dbx.hlp    k3iota.fts
hoh.hlp        k3crtl.fts    k3derrs.cnt  k3iota.hlp
hyperhelp.sh*  k3crtl.hlp    k3derrs.fts  k3new.cnt
k3.als         k3ctools.cnt  k3derrs.hlp  k3new.fts
k3cerrs.cnt    k3ctools.fts  k3dlr.cnt    k3new.hlp
k3cerrs.fts    k3ctools.hlp  k3dlr.fts    k3prog.cnt
k3cerrs.hlp    k3cw.cnt      k3dlr.hlp    k3prog.fts
k3clr.cnt      k3cw.fts      k3dopts.cnt  k3prog.hlp
k3clr.fts      k3cw.hlp      k3dopts.fts  lib/
k3clr.hlp      k3dap.cnt     k3dopts.hlp
k3clx.cnt      k3dap.fts     k3.ftg
k3clx.fts      k3dap.hlp     k3.fts



Most of the above files may not pertain to Lazarus, such as the k3c* files which relate to C++, but they are harmless to keep around.

The hyperhelp.sh script

We do need to dress up the default help script provided with Kylix so that it will work as a standalone app under X. Note that the last line of the script sets some missing rendering parameters? Also note the -geometry which positions the window and sets its size. 


#!/bin/bash
HHHOME="/home/tom/Lazarus/DelphiHelp"
XPPATH="${HHHOME}/xprinter"
LANG=en_US
LC_ALL=en_US
locale=${LC_ALL:-${LC_CTYPE:-${LANG:-"C"}}}
LD_LIBRARY_PATH+="lib/locale/"${locale}":lib:"
XAPPLRESDIR="app-defaults"
NLSPATH="lib/locale/%L/%N.cat"
export XPPATH HHHOME LANG LC_ALL LD_LIBRARY_PATH XAPPLRESDIR NLSPATH
cd $HHHOME
bin/hyperhelp k3clx.hlp -m AL\($1,3,,main\)\
    -s 0 -d 32159 -display :0.0 -geometry 600x500+100+100 -w


my Directory tree

/home/tom/Lazarus/DelphiHelp/
|-- bin
`-- lib
   `-- locale
       |-- de_DE
       |-- fr_FR
       |-- ja_JP.SJIS
       |-- ja_JP.eucJP
       `-- ja_JP.eucjp

Custom Tool setup in IDE

edittool.png


In summary

Just place your cursor in the edit window on the word you want to find help for and press CTRL-F1. The Kylix help will then open up the context sensitive help page for that keyword.

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