10.12 Action Bar Help Processing

The following information about the help action bar choice, its pull down options and help key processing within an action bar may assist your understanding of action bar processing:

• The action bar option Help is normally automatically added to the action bar.
  
  This may increase the number of options in your action bar so that it actually requires an extra line on the top of each screen panel.

• The pull down that appears when the automatic action bar help option is chosen is also automatically generated and handled.

• Once enabled, automatic help processing cannot be selectively suppressed.

• The text for the word "Help" in the action bar is derived from the short form description of the Help function key, so it should appear in the correct language.

• The automatic help action bar option is enabled if the current partition contains a process called HELP.* $$AB.

• The automatic pull down choices that appear are enabled by the presence of the following functions within process HELP$$AB:

Pull Down Choice	Function Name
Help for Help...	HELP$HH
Extended Help...	HELP$HE
Keys help...	HELP$HK
Help Index...	HELP$HI
Tutorial...	HELP$HT
About...	HELP$HA

 

• The order of the options in the pull down is pre-determined by the CUA standards and cannot be changed.

• The text for the pull down options is derived from the various descriptions of the RDML functions HELP$HH through HELP$HA. he function descriptions can be modified so that the pull down text is presented in the correct language.

• When an automatic help pull down choice is selected, it causes processing as follows:

Pull Down Option	Description of Processing When Chosen
Help for Help	The help text associated with function HELP$HH from process HELP $$AB is displayed.
Extended Help	The help text associated with the active process or function is displayed.
Keys help	The help text associated with function HELP$HK from process HELP $$AB is displayed.
Help Index	The normal help index associated with the active process or function is displayed.
Tutorial	The help text associated with function HELP$HT from process HELP $$HT is displayed.
About	The help text associated with function HELP$HA from process HELP $$HA is displayed.

 

• Help text can be made to appear in the desired language(s) using the normal multilingual facilities of LANSA.

• The help text is normally presented in a pop-up window. However, if the option to use IBM i Office help is used, this is what will appear.

• Use of the help function key will cause the extended help text associated with the currently active process or function to be displayed, regardless of whether or not the help pull down is on display.