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Using Online Help

NOL uses the G2 Online Documentation (GOLD) module of G2 to provide online help. You can:

NOL provides online viewing of HTML files, which correspond to the printed product documentation. HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) files are standard files, which any HTML browser on any platform can display. NOL automatically launches the HTML browser of your choice on your platform to display online help.

Once the selected online file appears in your browser, you can navigate around the entire online documentation set by using:

Before you can use online help, you must configure each machine that is going to use online documentation, to specify the list of available browsers, the location of the online books, and the available online books. You configure the local G2 that is running NOL first, then you configure any machine that is running G2 remotely, using Telewindows.

Once you have configured your machine for online help, each Telewindows user of your machine can also configure various user preferences for custom online viewing. For example, if multiple products are licensed, an individual user might want to view online help in only one of the available online books. Alternatively, an individual user might prefer one HTML browser over another.

Configuring Your Machine to Use Online Help

Before you can use online help, you must configure your machine to specify:

Note: You should configure your machine for online help after you have merged in all the applications that support online help. For example, if you are using GDA and NOL, you should follow the installation instructions for loading GDA and merging NOL before you configure your machine to use online help. If you merge an application after you have configured your machine for online help, you must restart G2 to initialize your online books.
To configure your machine to use online help:

  1. Select the Help > Help... menu choice.

    NOL displays this dialog:


  2. Select Yes to configure your machine for online help.

NOL displays the Machine Configuration dialog for specifying the available browsers and online books for this machine:


To add a browser:

  1. Click in Add Browser and enter the name of an HTML browser, such as Netscape.

    The browser you added appears in the list of available browsers.

  2. To configure the location of the available browser, select the browser you just added, and enter in the Path field the executable command that launches the browser, for example, netscape or netscape.exe.

    If the pathname to your browser is in your path, you do not need to enter a complete pathname; otherwise, you must enter the complete pathname and the executable command.

  3. Add as many browsers as you like to the list of available browsers.

To remove a browser:

By default, when you install your software, all online books for all licensed products are automatically installed into the default online directory. For each machine that uses online documentation, you must specify the path location of each online book. The default path location is the default directory in which you install online documentation.

If you have chosen not to install certain online books during installation, you can configure your machine so that it does not look for uninstalled online books.

To configure the installed online books:

  1. Click on the Books tab on the Machine Configuration dialog.

    By default, NOL lists the online books for each licensed product in the list of installed books. For example, if you have installed online documentation for both GDA and NOL, NOL displays this dialog:


  2. If you have not installed a particular book on your machine during the installation process, select the book, then select the right arrow to move it to the list of uninstalled books.

    If you have installed the online books according to the installation script, you can use the default pathname for the installed books. If you have installed the online books in a different directory than the default, you will need to specify the correct path for each installed book.

  3. To specify a different path for an installed book, select an installed book, and enter a new pathname in the Path field.

  4. Select OK to accept the machine configuration.

    NOL creates a default user preference that defines the default behavior of your specific online viewing environment. Each user of your machine can specify his or her own user preferences. You can edit these preferences now, or you can edit them later, as this dialog shows:


  5. Select No to edit the preferences later, or select Yes to edit the preferences now.

NOL displays a dialog that indicates it is initializing the tables for online context- sensitive help and search capability.

Note: If the tables do not initialize properly, a dialog appears indicating the error. When you display the Help dialog, the book name appears with an asterisk following the name, which indicates that you have not specified the correct directory for the online help files and tables. Select the Configure... button from the Help dialog and respecify the path location for the installed books.
For information on configuring the user preferences for online viewing, see "Configuring User Preferences for Online Viewing". This section also shows how to reconfigure your machine once it has been configured, if necessary.

Configuring Telewindows to Use Online Help

If you are running G2 remotely, using Telewindows, you should configure the available browsers and online books for your local G2 machine first. Any user that logs into your machine, using Telewindows, can then configure the specific browser and books that he or she will use remotely from Telewindows.

Note: If you configure the Telewindow machine before you have configured the local machine, NOL requires that you first configure the local machine, from the Telewindow machine. Once you have configured the local machine, NOL then asks you to configure the Telewindow machine.

Displaying the Table of Contents or Index for a Book

 If you do not know the topic you want to search for, you can go directly to the table of contents or index for any installed book. Once your browser displays the appropriate HTML file, you can click on any table of contents or index entry to hypertext to the specified location.

To display the table of contents for a book:

  1. Select the Help > Help... menu choice.

    NOL displays the Help dialog for choosing the book for which to display the table of contents or index. The Books tab at the top of the dialog is selected by default. Here is the Help dialog when both the GDA and NOL online books are available:


    The books that appear in the scroll area depend on whether you have installed the online books through the Machine Configuration dialog and whether you have made them available through the Options dialog.

    A book name can be grayed out in the scroll dialog if NOL cannot locate the book on your machine. This can happen when you save your user preferences through the Options dialog with a particular book available, and you log in to a machine that does not have the specified book installed on that machine.

    If a book appears in the dialog with an asterisk following the name, this indicates that you have specified an incorrect pathname for the online book. Select the Configure... button and respecify the path location for the installed book.

  2. Select the book for which you want to display the table of contents or index, and select either Contents... or Index...

    NOL launches your browser and locates the selected file. The online HTML file appears in your browser.

    Note: Launching the browser takes a few seconds. Do not launch the browser again while a launch is in progress.
    The table of contents and index for online books contain entries for both user and reference documentation.

  3. Click on any hypertext link in the online file to go to that location.

Searching for Online Help on a Topic

 If you know the topic you are interested in, you can access online help by using a search facility from within NOL. NOL searches the indexes of all available books and displays a list of help topics from which to choose. If you have multiple available books, NOL appends the product name to the help topic to identify the context.

To search for help on a topic:

  1. Select the Help > Help... menu choice, and select the Find tab at the top of the dialog.

    NOL displays the Help dialog for launching the search. This dialog also allows you to display the table of contents or index for a particular book and specify user preferences for online viewing.

    Here is the Help dialog with the Find tab selected:


  2. Enter a partial word, complete word, or multiple words you want to find and press Return.

    Use spaces to separate multiple words.

    NOL displays a list of matching topics in the scroll area. If you have entered multiple words, the matches include topics that contain both words. The total number of matches appears in the display area below the scroll area.

    By default, ten help topics appear in the scroll area, as specified in the Options dialog. You can customize the number of matches that appear in the scroll area, as described in "Configuring User Preferences for Online Viewing".

  3. Scroll through the list of topics until you find the topic you want to display, select the topic, and select the Display... button.

    GOLD launches your browser, using the specified launch and relaunch options, and displays the relevant file in the online documentation.

    Note: Launching the browser takes a few seconds. Do not launch the browser again while a launch is in progress.
  4. Search for help on another topic, or press the Dismiss button to dismiss the dialog.

If a browser already exists, you can configure GOLD to use the existing browser rather than launching a new one each time you invoke a search. For more information, see "Configuring User Preferences for Online Viewing".

Note: If you do not configure GOLD to use an existing browser, you must exit the browser each time you invoke online help; otherwise, GOLD will open multiple browsers. When you have opened more than five browsers, GOLD displays a warning message asking if you would like to close the least recently opened browser. Selecting yes terminates this browser automatically. You will only receive this warning message once; at this point, it is up to you to insure that you do not open too many browsers.

Using Context-Sensitive Help

 You can display context-sensitive help for the following objects in NOL:

Depending on the number of entries available for a particular context, GOLD either displays the online help directly or presents a list of help topics from which to choose.

To display context-sensitive help:

If only one help topic is available for the given context, NOL displays online help for the selected block directly. For example, positioning your mouse over a block on a workspace usually displays online documentation for the block directly.

If more than one topic is available for the given context, NOL displays a scroll area with a list of online help topics for that context. For example, if you position your mouse over a block on a palette, you will see a scroll area with two help topics, one for the block and one for the palette.

To display online help when multiple topics exist:

  1. Select a topic and select the Display... button.

    GOLD launches your browser, using the specified launch and relaunch options, and displays the relevant file in the online documentation.

    Note: Launching the browser takes a few seconds. Do not launch the browser again while a launch is in progress.
  2. Press the Dismiss button.

    Note: You must dismiss the dialog to display context-sensitive help on another topic.
If a browser already exists, you can configure GOLD to use the existing browser rather than launching a new one each time you invoke a search. For more information, see "Configuring User Preferences for Online Viewing".

Note: If you do not configure GOLD to use an existing browser, you must exit the browser each time you invoke online help; otherwise, GOLD will open multiple browsers. When you have opened more than five browsers, GOLD displays a warning message asking if you would like to close the least recently opened browser. Selecting yes terminates this browser automatically. You will only receive this warning message once; at this point, it is up to you to insure that you do not open too many browsers.

Configuring User Preferences for Online Viewing

 You can configure these aspects of your online viewing environment:

You set these user preferences for individual users of your machine. The available books and available browsers are determined by the machine configuration, as described in "Configuring Your Machine to Use Online Help". You can also reconfigure your machine, if necessary.

To configure your online viewing preferences:

  1. Select the Help > Help... menu choice, and select the Options... button.

    NOL displays the Options dialog for configuring the available books, the browser to launch, and the find preferences. Here is the initial Options dialog when both GDA and NOL are licensed:


  2. Select the desired tab page, configure the options, and select OK to return to the Help dialog.

To configure the available books for online viewing:

  1. Select the Books tab on the Options dialog.

    By default, all books that are available for your machine are also available for online view.

  2. To avoid displaying online help from a particular book, select a book from the Books In Use scroll areas, and click the right arrow to move it to the Books Not In Use scroll area.

NOL only searches for help topics and for context-sensitive help in books that are in use.

Your machine might have multiple available browsers for viewing online help files. You can choose the browser to use and the browser launch command.

To configure the browser to use for online viewing:

  1. Select the Browser tab on the Options dialog.

    NOL displays the tab page for the Options dialog that lists all of the available browsers for your machine, and the default launch and relaunch options.

  2. If multiple browsers are available for your machine, choose the browser to use from the list of available browsers.

    The default launch and relaunch command line arguments for the selected browser appear in the fields.

    Note: The Launch Options and Relaunch Options fields are only supported on UNIX platforms; PC platforms do not support launch and relaunch options as command line arguments. Because of this, you should exit your browser each time you invoke online help after you view the online files of interest. Alternatively, you can launch your browser by using a batch file, which uses an existing browser if one exists. For more information on how to do this, see the documentation for your browser.
  3. To specify additional launch and relaunch options for your browser, edit these fields in the dialog.

For example, to launch Netscape with its own color map, and to relaunch Netscape using an existing browser, if one exists, specify the Launch Options and Relaunch options as follows:


When you use the Find command to search for help topics, NOL displays a maximum of ten topics from which to choose. Similarly, when you click on an object in NOL to display context-sensitive help, NOL displays a maximum of ten topics from which to choose. You can specify the maximum number of help entries to display in a scroll area.

To configure the maximum number of help entries:

  1. Select the Find tab on the Options dialog.

    NOL displays this tab page:


  2. Specify the maximum number of help entries for searches that you launch using the Find command in the Topic-based Search field.

  3. Specify the maximum number of help entries for context-sensitive help searches in the Context-sensitive Help field.

You might need to reconfigure your machine to change the directory location of your online books, or you might need to reconfigure your HTML browsers. This might be necessary if you specify the wrong directory location initially or if you specify the wrong launch or relaunch commands for your browsers.

To reconfigure your machine once it has already been configured:

NOL displays the same configuration dialog you saw when you initially configured your machine for online help. For information on how to configure your machine for online help, see "Configuring Your Machine to Use Online Help".

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