Help Browser Interface

The Help Browser interface is available in all versions of the IDL Workbench. For notes on differences in appearance and behavior between platforms, see Help System Platform Dependencies.

For information on configuring IDL to use the Help Browser interface, see Selecting a Help System Interface.

Internal Browser vs. External Web Browser Interface

The Help Browser interface appears either in a "stand-alone" browser interface associated with the IDL Workbench (the internal browser), or in an external web browser installed separately on your system.

On Windows systems, you can choose whether the Help Browser uses the internal browser or an external web browser. See Selecting a Help System Interface for details.

On Macintosh systems, the Help Browser always uses an external web browser.

On Linux systems that have GTK+ version 2.10 or higher, you can choose whether the Help Browser uses the internal browser or an external web browser. See Selecting a Help System Interface for details. On systems with GTK+ versions earlier than 2.10, the Help Browser always uses an external web browser.

On Solaris (Sparc) systems, the Help Browser always uses an external web browser.

Help Browser Tabs

The browser interface is divided in two main sections: the content pane on the right (where help content is displayed) and the navigation pane on the left.

Tabs are located at the bottom of the navigation pane:


Table of Contents Text Search Bookmarks Index Links

Click the tabs to display the:

Toolbar Icons

Several toolbar buttons are included above the content pane:


	Go backward in the browser history. (See About the IDL Workbench Help Topics for notes on moving sequentially through the table of contents.)
	Go forward in the browser history. (See About the IDL Workbench Help Topics for notes on moving sequentially through the table of contents.)
	Display the help system home page.
	Display the location of the current topic in the table of contents.
	Create a bookmark for the current topic.
	Highlight occurrences of search term. (This icon does not appear in the toolbar until you perform a full-text search.)
	Print the current topic.
	Maximize the content pane.

Navigation Pane Tabs

The table of contents tab of the navigation pane displays a hierarchical view of the entire IDL documentation set.

Click on books and topics in the listing to either display additional topics in the contents tab or display the topic in the content pane.

Click the printer icon to print the topic selected in the table of contents.

Click the collapse icon to show only the top-level topics.

Click the synchronize icon to synchronize the table of contents with the topic displayed in the content pane.

Click the maximize icon to maximize the contents tab.

Index

The index tab of the navigation pane displays the IDL help system index.

To perform an index search enter text in the Type in the word to find field.

Tip
Unlike the text search, which does a brute-force search through the documentation content for matching terms, the index is created by the authors of the IDL help content. It corresponds to the index you would find at the back of a printed book. As a result, it may lead you more quickly to indexed topics than the text search mechanism.

Click the synchronize icon to locate the topic in the content pane in the table of contents.

Click the maximize icon to maximize the index tab.

Text Search

The text search tab displays results of a full-text search in the IDL help system content.

To perform a search, enter text in the Search field above the navigation pane and click GO.

Click the categories icon to display the category to which the located topic belongs. In the illustration above, categories are showing.

Click the description icon to display the first few characters of the located topic in the search tab. In the illustration above, descriptions are not showing.

Click the synchronize icon to locate the topic in the content pane in the table of contents.

Click the maximize icon to maximize the search tab.

Limiting Search Results

If you find that the full text search mechanism returns more results than are useful to you, you can limit the search scope. To choose a new search scope, click the Search scope link next to the Search field:

The Select Search Scope dialog is displayed. If you have previously defined a search scope, choose it from the list and click OK. (Search scopes are defined by you; none are included in a default IDL installation.)

After choosing a search scope, the full-text search mechanism will look only in the documents you have chosen. Your search scope is displayed alongside the Search field:

To define a new search scope, click New... on the Select Search Scope dialog. The New Search List dialog is displayed:

The categories displayed correspond to headings in the table of contents tab. Choose one or more topics for your search scope. You can create multiple search scopes to make it easier to search for different types of information.

Links

When you request context-sensitive help on an element in the IDL Workbench interface, a list of links to relevant topics is displayed in the Help view or in a popup window. If you switch to the Help browser interface from either the Help view or the popup, the list of relevant links is duplicated in the Links tab.

For example, if you select the Command Line view and press F1 (Windows), Help (Macintosh), or Shift-F1 (Linux/Solaris), links shown in the dynamic help pop-up are also displayed in the Links tab after you click one of the links to display it in the help browser.

Note
The Links tab may not appear in the Help Browser interface until you request context-sensitive help and switch to the browser.

Click the synchronize icon to locate the topic in the content pane in the table of contents.

Click the maximize icon to maximize the links tab.

Bookmarks

The bookmarks contains a list of all bookmarks you have created.

Click on a bookmark entry to display it in the content pane.

Click delete bookmark icon to delete the current bookmark.

Click the delete all bookmarks icon to delete all bookmarks.

Click the synchronize icon to locate the topic in the content pane in the table of contents.

Click the maximize icon to maximize the bookmarks tab.