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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 1.00
January 1990


Quick Help shell for QEdit and other programs.



Written by Dale A. Keller

Public Domain







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QHelp
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Table of Contents


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

Introduction 3

Installation 4

Using QHelp 6

Future Enhancements 7

About the Author 7








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---------------------------------------------------------
Introduction
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Qhelp is a shell program which has a 3 page help screen,
an ASCII chart, and a Screen Attribute chart. 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, or the Color codes chart.
When you exit QEdit (or other program), QHelp also un-
loads 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, and even the program it calls.
In other words, you can install QHelp to call ANY prog-
ram - 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
--------------------------------------------------------


QHelp requires an IBM PC, AT, or compatible running PC-
DOS or MS-DOS, and takes up about 11 k bytes. Your com-
puter must also have enough memory to load whatever
program you are adding the pop-up help to.


The QHelp package should contain the following files:

QQ.EXE the QHelp program
QQCONFIG.EXE the QHelp configuration program
QQHELP.TXT the help text file
QHELP.DOC this manual



To install QHelp, just copy these files to your working
disk where you keep QEdit (or whatever program you will be
adding QHelp to).

QHelp, in its un-configured state, contains the ASCII and
Color charts, but no help text. During configuration, the
QQCONFIG program installs the contents of QQHELP.TXT into
QQ.EXE. The QQHELP.TXT file in this package is what I
like in my help file. It has a few re-defined QEdit keys
for my use of Turbo Assembler. This help file will NOT
change your key assignments, so you should change the
QQHELP.TXT file to reflect your key setup. You can change
anything in it that you like.

If you want to modify QQHELP.TXT, just edit it with an
ASCII text processor. The file MUST contain 75 or fewer
lines of 80 or fewer characters (including expanded tabs)
when you finish.

Then 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 then reads in the default
parameters from QQ.EXE and checks 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 into 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.





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It then asks for the name of the help file. This is the
75 line by 80 character file you should have created
earlier. The default is QQHELP.TXT.

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.

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 r

keys will change the hot key installed in QHelp to Ctrl r.
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.

QQCONFIG will then modify the QQ.EXE program to reflect
your configuration.






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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).



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, or Colors. You may press the
first letter of the item (H, A, or C) or you may use the
up and down arrows to move to the item and then press
Enter.

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.

On the ASCII chart, PgUp/PgDn move you between 3 screens.
The Esc key returns to QEdit.

On the Color chart, any key returns you to 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 11 k bytes of memory. You can run
QEdit alone just as you did before if you need the extra
memory. The QQ.EXE program is the only file required to
run QHelp. The other files are for configuration only.






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---------------------------------------------------------
Future Enhancements
---------------------------------------------------------


I have several enhancements in mind for QHelp. These are:

- A printer setup utility to send control codes
to the printer.

- A keyboard scan code chart.

- A mouse driver for QEdit.

- ______________________________


The next version of QHelp should have these and possibly
more enhancements added.



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


QHelp was written in Assembly language by Dale A. Keller.
Dale lives in Denver, CO. 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 (1.00) of QHelp is distributed as Public
Domain software. No fee may be charged for its use.


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