Glossary

Online help for a particular application (software).

A hyperlink designed especially for invoking some application behavior. To invoke the behavior, the help must be displayed in dialogs created by the application. (Application-defined hyperlinks are ignored by Helpview.)

Help presented by the system as the result of a particular condition or error. Sometimes called "system initiated" help. For example, error dialogs are a form of "automatic help." See also semi-automatic help and manual help.

A warning to the user about possible loss of data. See also note and warning

An application function called when a help dialog is closed.

Online information that is relevant to what the user is doing within an application. Sometimes, pressing the F1 key is referred to as "context-sensitive help" because the choice of help topic is based on the user's context.

A hyperlink that jumps to a topic in a different help volume. Cross-volume hyperlinks are entered using the <link> element, where the hyperlink parameter specifies the volume name and an ID (separated by a space):

   <link hyperlink="volume  id"> text <\link>

A list of help dialogs that have been created but may not be in use. When the application needs a new help dialog, it first searches its dialog cache for an unused dialog. If one is found, it is used. Otherwise, all dialogs are in use, so a new one is created.

A logical portion of information, such as a book title, a paragraph, a list or a topic. Normally, the extent of an element is marked by tags, although the tags for some elements are assumed by context.

An element of text that calls attention to the text (usually by being formatted as italic).

A text string or file with a name. Most entities are named by the author (using the <!entity> element), but some entities are predefined. See also entity declaration and entity reference.

Markup that establishes an entity name and its value. See also entity and entity reference.

Use of an entity name preceded by an ampersand (&) and followed by a semicolon (;) that indicates to HelpTag that the entity is to be inserted where the entity name appears. See also entity and entity declaration.

A point within a help volume that may be displayed directly as the result of a request for help. That is, a topic where the user may "enter" or begin reading online help. Any topic, or location within a topic, that has an ID can become an entry point.

A body of text in which line breaks are left as they are and which is displayed in a computer font. The text is typically an example of a portion of a computer file. Example listings are entered using the <ex> or <vex> elements.

A graphic or illustration that appears in the help information.

A window in which help information is displayed. General help dialogs have a menu bar, a Topic Hierarchy (which displays the current topic location), and a help topic display area. In addition, the dialog has the following subdialogs: History, Keyword Index, and Print. See also quick help dialog.

A general purpose application for viewing the online help installed on a system. HP VUE 3.0 uses the Helpview program as a "help browser" by displaying a special browser volume that lists the help installed on the system. (HP VUE uses a utility called helpgen to create the browser volume.)

An application function called when the user presses the F1 key.

A designated key -- usually the F1 function key -- used to request help on the current context. Some keyboards have a dedicated "Help" key that may take the place of F1. In OSF/Motif applications, the help key is enabled by adding a "help callback" to a widget.

Help about how to use the help dialog windows. The user gets this information by pressing F1 while using a help window, or by choosing Using Help from the Help menu in a general help dialog.

A complete body of information about a subject. Also, this term can refer to either the set of source files that contain the marked-up text or the run-time files generated by running HelpTag.

A dialog that shows the sequence of topics the user has visited. The history sequence can be traversed in reverse order to make it easy for the user to return to earlier topics. The History dialog remembers only the 20 most recent topics.

The topic at the top of the hierarchy in a help volume. This is the topic that is displayed when the user indicates a desire to browse a help volume. HelpTag provides a built-in ID for the home topic: _hometopic.

A segment of text (word or phrase) or graphic image that has some "behavior" associated with it. The most common type of hyperlink is a "jump" link, which connects to a related topic. When the user chooses a jump link, the related topic is displayed.

Hyperlinks can also be used to invoke other kinds of behavior, such as executing a system command or invoking specific application behavior.

An application function that is invoked when a user chooses a hyperlink. This function is responsible for handling the types of hyperlinks not handled automatically within the help dialog.

A small graphic (illustration) that appears within a line of text.

A hyperlink that, when chosen, displays its information in a new dialog window. Jump-new-view links are intended for cross-volume links. The user senses a "new context" by a new window being displayed.

A list of important words and phrases that appear throughout a help volume. The keyword index, like the index in a book, is an alphabetical list of the words and a list of each important occurrence. The HP Help System presents the keyword index in a dialog when the user chooses Keyword from the Search menu (in a general help dialog).

A hyperlink which, if activated, displays a "man page", which is a brief online explanation of a system command. The information in man pages are not supplied through the HelpTag system.

A style of online help that requires the user to know what help is needed and how to get it. For example, most commands in a Help menu are considered "manual" help because the user chooses when and what to view. See also automatic help and semi-automatic help.

A message to the user that draws attention to important information. If the information is critically important, a caution or warning is used instead. See also caution and warning.

The portion of the HelpTag software that reads the source files (which are created by the author) and converts them into run-time help files that the HP Help System dialogs can read. If the author uses markup incorrectly (or incompletely), the parser detects the problems and indicates that "parser errors" have occurred.

A set of help volumes that are related to one another because the applications they refer to are related.

A simple window that displays help information. A quick help dialog has a help topic display area and a few buttons. See also general help dialog, which offers additional capabilities.

The process of declaring a help volume to be accessible for browsing or cross-volume linking.

The files generated by the helptag command. These are the files distributed to users who will use the HP Help System.

A style of online help in which the user requests help and the system decides, based on the current circumstances, which help information to display. "Context-sensitive" help (pressing the F1 key) is an example of semi-automatic help. See also automatic help and manual help.

An abbreviated way of marking an element where the end tag is marked with a single vertical bar and the last character of the begin tag is also a vertical bar. For example, the short form of the <book> element is:

   <book|text|

An abbreviated way of marking an element where the begin and end tags are replaced with a special two-character sequence. For example, the shorthand form of the <computer> element is two opening single quotation marks followed by two closing single quotation marks like this:

   text

Help information intended to be used independently of application software. For example, online help that explains the basics of computer programming may not be associated with a particular application. A stand-alone help volume can be displayed using the helpview command.

A text string that marks the beginning or end of an element. A start tag consists of a left angle bracket (<) followed by a special character string (consisting of only letters), optional parameters and values, and terminated by a right angle bracket (>). An end tag consists of a left angle bracket (<), a backslash (\), the same special character string, and a right angle bracket (>).

A standard graphics file format. The HP Help System dialogs support TIFF 5.0 images. TIFF images are identified by the .tif filename extension.

Information about a specific subject. Usually, this is about one screenful of information. Online help topics are linked to one another through hyperlinks.

A help volume's branching structure in which the home topic branches out (via hyperlinks) to progressively more detailed topics. See also home topic.

Help information that warns the user about possible injury or unrecoverable loss of data. See also caution and note.

The fundamental building block of graphical user interfaces. The OSF/Motif widget set provides widgets of all sorts, suitable for constructing an application user interface.

A two-tone image that has one foreground color and one background color. Bitmap image files are identified by the .bm filename extension.

A multi-color image. Pixmap image files are identified by the .pm filename extension.

An image captured from an X Window System display. The xwd utility is used to capture a window image. X window dump image files are identified by the .xwd filename extension.