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QQQQ H H EEEEEE L PPPPP
Q Q H H E L P P
Q Q H H E L P P
Q Q HHHHHH EEEE L PPPPP
Q Q Q H H E L P
Q Q H H E L P
QQQQ Q H H EEEEEE LLLLLL P
Q





QHelp

version 1.10
February 1991


Quick Help shell for QEdit and other programs.








Written by Dale A. Keller
Copyright February 1991, Dale A. Keller
Freeware







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QHelp
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Table of Contents


Section Page
------------------------ ----

List of Features 3

Introduction 4

Installation/Configuration 5

Using QHelp 8

Version History 10

About the Author 10





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List of Features
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o Pop-up help screen for QEdit and other programs.

o Easy to use - menu driven.

o The help text file can be up to 799 lines long.

o You can have a different help text file for each sub-
directory you use. QHelp will automatically select the
help text file from your current subdirectory - so you
can have a different help text file for each program
you use. For instance: you can have a help file tailored
to Assembly Language in your assembler directory, and one
tailored to the C Language in your C directory.

o Speed Search facility allows you to type the word you are
looking for, and QHelp will immediatly find and highlight
it in the help text.

o Uses Expanded Memory if available to store the help text
file - QHelp then uses only about 13K of conventional
memory. Removes itself from memory after use so no memory
is taken from other programs.

o Pop-up ASCII chart.

o Pop-up Color Attribute chart displayed in Hex and Decimal.

o Pop-up Printer Setup codes selected from a menu, or you
can 'roll your own'.

o Fully configurable - change colors, hot-key, help text,
and printer setup codes.

o Desqview compatible.

o Can be used in dense screen formats (like 132 x 60).






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---------------------------------------------------------
Introduction
---------------------------------------------------------

Qhelp is a shell program which pops up a help file, an
ASCII chart, a Screen Attribute chart, and sends setup
codes to a printer. When you run QHelp, it loads into
memory and then loads QEdit or another program. QHelp
does nothing until you hit the hot key. It then pops up
a menu allowing you to select Help text, the ASCII chart,
the Color codes chart, or the Printer Setups. When you
exit QEdit (or other program), QHelp also unloads itself
from memory. This keeps memory clear - not taking up
memory as a TSR (Terminate and Stay Resident) program
would.

QHelp was designed for use with QEdit, and therefore
looks and feels a lot like QEdit. Like Qedit, it is
very configurable - you can alter screen colors, the
hot key, the help text, the printer setup codes, and even
the program it calls. In other words, you can install
QHelp to call ANY program - not just QEdit.

QHelp is primarily for programmers, as is QEdit. There-
fore, it is aimed at programmers needs (ASCII and color
charts). But if you need to add a help screen to any
other program, it should do the job.




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--------------------------------------------------------
Installation/Configuration
--------------------------------------------------------

QHelp requires an IBM PC, AT, or compatible running PC-
DOS or MS-DOS, and takes up about 13K bytes. Your com-
puter must also have enough memory to load the program
to which you are adding the pop-up help. Qhelp will use
expanded memory (version 3.2 or above) if available.


The QHelp package should contain the following files:

QQ.EXE the QHelp program
QQCONFIG.EXE the QHelp configuration program
QQHELP.TXT the QEdit help text file
QQHELP.TC the QEdit/TurboC help text file
QQHELP.AS the QEdit/Turbo Assembler help text file
QQHELP.DOC this manual

Note that all files start with QQ to differentiate
between QHelp, QEdit, and other files.

To install QHelp, just copy these files to your working
disk where you keep QEdit (or whatever program you will be
adding QHelp to). The only files required to actually run
QHelp are QQ.EXE and QQHELP.TXT.

The QHelp program itself contains the ASCII and Color charts,
and the Printer Setup codes. The help text file is loaded
at run time. The QQCONFIG.EXE program is used to modify
the screen colors, the hot key, the printer setup strings,
and the name of the help text file and the program to
execute (usually QEdit). More on this in a moment.

--- Modifying the Help Text ---

If you want to modify QQHELP.TXT, just edit it with an
ASCII text processor. The file may contain up to 799
lines of 80 characters plus a CR/LF. This is easiest to
do if you build your text file and then use the QEdit line
drawing function to draw a box around the entire text.
This will make each line the same length (they MUST be 80
characters wide). Check the number of lines when you
finish.

The files QQHELP.TC and QQHELP.ASM are help files which
have been tailored for Turbo C and Turbo Assembler. To
use these files, place them in the subdirectories where
you will use them and rename them to QQHELP.TXT. You
can also place the standard QQHELP.TXT file in a sub-
directory which is listed in your PATH, so when you load
QHelp from a directory which does not have it's own help
text file, the standard help text file will be loaded.



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--- Modifying the way QHelp Runs ---

To modify the way QHelp operates, run QQCONFIG. It will ask
for the program name to configure. This will normally be
QQ.EXE unless you rename QQ.EXE to something else. Just
press Enter if you want to accept the default. QQCONFIG
will read in the default parameters from QQ.EXE and check
the version number.

QQCONFIG then asks for the name of the program to execute
from the shell. If you accept the default Q.EXE, QHelp will
run QEdit. If you want to install QHelp for a different
program, enter its name here. When QHelp is run, it will
install its hot key help, and then execute whatever program
you specify here.

Technical note: QHelp chains itself into the interrupt 16h
keyboard handler of the BIOS to trap the hot key. If you
install QHelp to run a program which does not use the
standard BIOS to get its keyboard input, QHelp won't pop
up. Sorry - I had to do this to make it DesqView compat-
ible.

QQCONFIG then asks for the name of the help file. This is
the text help file you should have created earlier. The
default is QQHELP.TXT.

A menu then allows you to select the options to set.

--- Modifying QHelp's Colors ---

To change the colors of the QHelp screen elements, select
1 - Modify Colors. A color attribute chart will then be
displayed, and you will be asked to select colors for each
of QHelp's elements. The color shown in brackets is the
default, and will be used if you just press Enter.

QHelp comes configured for a monochrome screen, to be
compatible with as many systems as possible.

--- Changing the Hot Key ---

To modify the hot key which triggers QHelp, select 3 -
Modify Hot Key. The hot key to trigger QHelp may be
changed by pressing the hot key combination you desire at
the prompt. For example, pressing the 'Ctrl F1' keys
will change the hot key installed in QHelp to Ctrl F1. Just
pressing Enter will install the default hot key. I normally
use 'Alt h' to make QHelp pop up where the QEdit help
screen would be if QHelp wasn't running.

Note: The only hot keys allowed are the F1 thru F10 keys,
or any letter key, in combination with nothing, the
Alt key, Ctrl key, or Shift key.



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--- Changing the Printer Setups ---

To modify the printer setup codes, select 2 - Modify
Printer Setups. You may change the name of the printer.
This is the name which will appear at the top of the printer
setups menu - it does not effect the operation of the
program. The name may be up to 20 characters long.

For each of the 10 setup strings, the current menu selection
text will be displayed, and then the actual printer setup
code. You may modify the menu entry text, which will
appear in the menu when running QHelp. Each item may be up
to 20 characters long. You may then modify the printer setup
codes. See the section on Using QHelp - Using the Printer
Setups for the format of these codes. Each code may be up to
20 bytes long.

If you want to use less than the maximum of 10 setup strings,
put 'X' in the Menu Entry after the last valid entry. This
entry and all entries after this will then show 'Roll-Your-
Own' in the menu entry. Do not put any menu entries or setup
codes after the 'X' or the pop-up menu will show nonsense
entries.

QHelp comes configured for an Epson LQ-1000, which uses most
of the same codes as other Epson printers, the IBM Proprinter,
and many other printers. Check the setup codes with QQCONFIG
and you may be able to use the existing codes with your
printer, just changing the printer name.


--- Saving Your Changes ---

If you select S - Save and Exit, QQCONFIG will modify the
QQ.EXE program to reflect your configuration. If you select
A - Abort and Exit, QQCONFIG will exit without modifying
QQ.EXE.



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---------------------------------------------------------
Using QHelp
---------------------------------------------------------

To use QHelp, type QQ (or whatever name you changed it to
during configuration). You can follow the program name
with parameters needed by QEdit (or your program). For
instance, to use QHelp with QEdit to edit a file named
test.c

QQ test.c

QHelp will start, install the help hotkey, and then run
QEdit, passing the parameter 'test.c' to it.

In other words, you run QHelp just like you run QEdit,
except you type QQ filename instead of Q filename.

QHelp will look for QEdit (Q.EXE) first in the current
directory, and then through all directories listed in the
PATH variable (just as DOS does). Then it will look for
the help text file (QQHELP.TXT) first in the current dir-
ectory, and then along the path.

--- Popping QHelp Up ---

While running QEdit, press the hot key you defined in the
configuration program. The help menu will pop up giving
you a choice of Help, ASCII, Colors, or Printer Setups.
You may press the first letter of the item (H, A, C, or P)
or you may use the up and down arrows to move to the item
and then press Enter. Pressing Esc will return you to
QEdit.

--- Using the Help Text Screen ---

On the Help Text screen, you can scroll up or down by
pressing the up/down arrows or the PgUp/PgDn keys. To
return to QEdit, press Esc.

To search for a keyword on the Help Text screen, simply
start typing the word. QHelp will search through the
text until it finds a string of characters which matches
what you have typed, and will highlight this string.
As you continue to type, QHelp will search for matching
text. If you want to find the next occurance of the
string, press Enter. Example:

To find the string 'box',
type b QHelp highlights the first 'b'
it finds in the help text.
type o QHelp highlights the first 'bo'
it finds in the help text.
type x QHelp highlights the first 'box'
it finds in the help text.
press Enter QHelp highlights the 2nd 'box'
it finds in the help text.





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--- Using the ASCII Chart ---

On the ASCII chart, the PgUp/PgDn and the Up/Down arrow
keys will move you through the complete chart. The Esc
key will return you to QEdit.

--- Using the Color Chart ---

On the Color chart, the Esc key will return you to QEdit.

--- Using the Printer Setups ---

On the Printer Setups menu, you can select any of the
predifined setup strings, and QHelp will send the string
to the printer. If you want to send a setup string
which is not predifined, select Roll-Your-Own. You can
then type the control codes into the text window. Control
codes must be characters from the keyboard, or must use the
Lotus 123 format (a backslash followed by a three digit
decimal number representing the code).

Example:

To send the Epson reset command (Esc @), type

\027@

or for the Compressed Elite command (15 Esc M), type

\015\027M



--- Exiting From QHelp & QEdit ---

When you exit from QEdit, control returns to QHelp, which
exits back to DOS, returning all memory to the system.

QHelp takes up about 13K bytes of memory if it uses
Expanded Memory to store the help text file. If Expanded
Memory is not available, it requires about 13K bytes plus
whatever is needed to store the help text. You can run
QEdit alone just as you did before if you need the extra
memory.




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Version History
-----------------------------------------------------------
Version 1.00 released January 1990.

Included a 75 line help text file, a color chart, and an
ASCII chart.

-----------------------------------------------------------
Version 1.10 released February 1991.

Modifications in version 1.10 include:

- Now uses Expanded Memory (v3.2 or above) if available.
- Fixed 'PATH' problem some users experienced, where QHelp
could not locate the Q.EXE file.
- Added a Printer Setup menu.
- Added DesqView compatibility.
- Help text files can now be up to 799 lines long.
- Added speed search to locate words on the help screen.
- Added a decimal color chart (now has both Hex and Decimal).
- Now uses the help text file found in the current sub-
directory, or along the path. (Allows the use of
a different help text file in each subdirectory).
Note: You no longer have to run QQCONFIG if you change
your QQHELP.TXT file, because the help text is no longer
stored in the QQ.EXE file.
- Cleaned up the style of the screens so they look more
consistant.




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About the Author
---------------------------------------------------------

QHelp was written in Turbo Assembler by Dale A. Keller.
Dale lives in Denver, CO. with his wife and two sons, and
has been a COBOL (yuck), BASIC, C, and assembly programmer
since the days of 6502 based single board computers (back
when High Res meant 24 x 16 text in 2 colors - black and
white).

Questions or enhancement suggestions should be sent to:

Dale A. Keller
3255 S. Estes St.
Lakewood, CO. 80227

This version (1.10) of QHelp is distributed as Freeware.
Copyright February 1991, Dale A. Keller.
No fee may be charged for its use.

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