UsersGuide:Chapter 1:Using The On-Line Help

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 User's Guide Table Of Contents

 Chapter 1: Contents

 Previous: Documentation Conventions

 Next: Using Tips

Contents
 1 Using the On-Line Documentation
o 1.1 Using the Local Wiki
o 1.2 Searching the Online and Local Documentation
 1.2.1 Searching the Local Documentation
o 1.3 Context-Sensitive Help
o 1.4 Context-Sensitive Error Messages
o 1.5 Using the HyperText Links in the Online Help
o 1.6 Using the Code Examples

Using the On-Line Documentation

The Real Studio Language Reference is built-in to Real Studio. To access this language reference, choose Help
↠ Language Reference (F1 on Windows and Linux or ⌘-? on Macintosh) or press the Help key.
The On-Line Reference

Click a category name to view the subcategories and then click a subcategory to view its language items. Click
on item to navigate to it.

Use the Arrows in the header area to move backward and forward through the items you have been browsing.
The keyboard equivalents are Ctrl+[and Ctrl+] on Windows and Linux and Command-Left Arrow and
Command-Right Arrow on Macintosh. The Home button takes you back to the page with the list of categories
and subcategories.

When you are programming, context-sensitive help is also available. Select the item in your Code Editor for
which you want help and right+click (Command-click on Macintosh). A contextual menu appears. Choose the
Help for ItemName menu command. Real Studio will then open the online reference to the desired item.

Using the Local Wiki

The documentation is published as a MediaWiki and it is online for general use. You can access the Real Studio
Wiki directly from the Real Studio Help menu. Choose the book you want from the Help menu. You can also
navigate to the Real Studio Wiki at http://docs.realsoftware.com.

The documentation set can also be made available locally. The local wiki is not recreated every time there is a
change to the online wiki, so there may be additions/corrections in the online wiki that are not available in the
local copy. The local copy is always rebuilt from the online wiki with each new release of Real Studio. It may
also be rebuilt periodically between Real Studio releases. Contributions to the online wiki are continuous.

To access the local copy, choose Edit ↠ Options (or Real Studio ↠ Preferences on Macintosh) and choose the
General screen. The bottom section of General preferences enables you to choose from either the online
documentation or the local documentation. The default is online.
Choosing the local wiki in Preferences.

You can also switch to the local wiki without displaying this dialog by holding down the Alt key when choosing
the book you want in the Help menu. On Macintosh, hold down the Option key. Real Studio will then open the
local wiki even if the Preference is set to the online wiki.
The local version of the Language Reference.

Searching the Online and Local Documentation

Use the Location area in the header of the window to search the Online Reference. To search for a Real Studio
language object (i.e., an item listed in the Browser), simply begin typing the name of the object.

As you type, Real Studio tries to guess the name of the object. If it has one guess, the guess appears in gray text.
To accept the guess, press the Tab key. If it has several guesses, three dots appear. Press Tab and a pop-up
menu of choices appears. Use the up and down arrow keys to highlight the desired item and press Tab or Return
to select it. Press Enter or Return to accept the entry and jump to the item.

Use the Search area to search for any term, such as the name of a property, method or event. Press Enter to do
the search. If it finds matching items, it will return a list of found items. For example, the following shows the
results for a search on the term “multiline”.
Search results in the Online Reference.

If you are searching for the Database class in the Language Reference, click the Search button instead of
the Go button. In this case, searching for “Database ” in the Language Reference will take you to the Database
theme in the index instead of the Database class.

Searching the Local Documentation

The search areas that are in the left margin in the online reference are in the header area in the local copy. Use
the Location field to search for items in the Language Reference and use the Search field to find words or
phrases that are not item names. Use the autocomplete feature of the Location field to display and choose an
item. Use the Up and Down keys to navigate this popup. Use the Search field to search for any string (which
may be the name of an item).
Autocomplete in the local Real Studio Wiki.

Context-Sensitive Help

The contextual menu in the Code Editor has a menu item for help. Highlight a command in your Code Editor
for which you want help and then choose “Help for...” from the contextual menu. In the following example, the
user has right+clicked (Control-click on Macintosh) on the term “FolderItem” in the Code Editor. The
contextual menu appears and offers to look up this term in the Online Reference.

Looking up a term from the Code Editor.

Context-Sensitive Error Messages

When you attempt to compile Real Studio code, the application first analyzes your project for syntactical errors
and other issues that may cause the application to behave unexpectedly. If it finds a problem, it opens a new tab
in the IDE called “Issues” and describes the problem it found. For more information about Real Studio’s error
checking, see the section Analyzing the Project in Chapter 12.

Using the HyperText Links in the Online Help

Any text that appears in blue in the Online Reference is a hypertext link. Clicking on the text will switch the
Online Reference to a page about the topic you clicked on; right+clicking enables you to open a new window or
tab.

The Users Guide and Language Reference are part of the same large Wiki. This means that sections in one book
are referenced in the other book. In the User’s Guide, elements in the language are linked whenever they are
mentioned in the text. Also, the Language Reference contains links to sections in the User’s Guide whenever
they are relevant to the discussion.

Using the Code Examples

NOTE: The Online Reference contains many code examples that you can use in
your projects. You can copy and paste the examples into your Code Editor.

Some code examples omit irrelevant code for the sake of clarity. Omitted code is indicated by dots. Insert your
own code in its place. Also, some examples include a Sub or Function statement, which is added automatically
by the Code Editor. If copy and paste such an example into the Code Editor, you need to remove the duplicate
statements.

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 This page was last modified on 13 December 2011, at 21:00.