Help on How to Use Help

Clicking on the HELP button in any widget will display its related HELP manual page. This page can be scrolled through by using the scroll bar on its left edge. You can search the document for any word by typing the string in as the Search Keyword. Then press "SEARCH" to initiate the search starting at the beginning of the chosen manual pages (see below). To continue searching from the current position press "CONTINUE". If the keyword is found the display is scrolled so that the keyword is near the top of the page and the line which contains the keyword is highlighted in yellow. If you want to search using a different keyword, type in the new word.

By default, all help files are searched. If you only want the current manual page to be searched, click on the "Search All" button to unhighlight it. Any specific manual page can be chosen by choosing "Help Topics" from the "Search Dave Help Menu". Information about the currently selected manual page is displayed just below the menu bar.

SEARCH

Type in the search string as the Search Keyword. Then press "SEARCH" to initiate the search starting at the beginning of all the manual pages (the default) or at the beginning of the current manual page (if "Search All" is not set).

CONTINUE

To continue searching from the current position press "CONTINUE" .

SKIP

Pressing this continues the search from the start of the next manual page (it skips over the rest of current manual page).

POPUP

Pressing this pops up the widget which corresponds to the current manual page.

The search is case insensitive (i.e., capital letters will match small letters). Searches are for whole words, if the search string is a substring of a word in the manual page they will not match.

Any of the available help menus can be customized. Simply copy the correct help file from the ~jac/invitro/lib/dave directory and edit it. The mainmenu.hlp file includes directions at the top of it. Put whichever files you have modified into one of your directories. Then type: setenv DAVEHELP directory_path where directory_path is the name of the directory your help files are in. This setenv command can also be placed in your ~/.login so it will be automatically executed whenever you login. Of course, you may want to occassionally check the help files in ~jac/invitro/lib/dave since they may get updated or modified.


Copyright 1995 by Lawrence M. Lifshitz and the University of Massachusetts Medical School. All rights reserved.