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Inside Macintosh: Apple Guide Complete / Part 4 - Scripting Guide Files

Chapter 10 - Guide Script Command Reference / Guide Script Command Descriptions

/ Specifying Startup Information

<Help Menu>

You can use the <Help Menu> command to define the item text that Apple Guide displays in your application's Help menu when your application's guide file is available.

<Help Menu> itemString, helpType [, helpCmdKey]

itemString

A text string specifying the text of the menu item as it should appear in the application's Help menu. Do not specify any of these characters in your text string: ";", "^", "!", "<", "/", "-", "(", ")", ",", or "&".

helpType

A value indicating the type of help that this guide file provides or a value indicating the position of the menu item in the Help menu. You can specify any of these constants to indicate the help type:
ABOUT
TUTORIAL
HELP
SHORTCUTS
OTHER

If you specify a value other than these five constants, Apple Guide uses the specified value to determine the position of the menu item in the Help menu.

helpCmdKey

A one-character string that identifies the Command-key equivalent that the user can use to invoke this guide file. This parameter is optional. However, note that Apple Guide always invokes a guide file of type HELP (if one is available) when the user presses Command-Shift-/ (which maps to Command-Shift-? on U.S. keyboards). For guide files of type HELP, you should always specify "?" in this parameter. You cannot assign a Command-key equivalent for guide files of type ABOUT.

DESCRIPTION

Apple Guide displays in the application's Help menu the string defined by the itemString parameter. (Apple Guide displays the string only if your guide file is available to the application.) In addition, if you specify the helpCmdKey parameter, Apple Guide displays the Command-key symbol in the menu item followed by the character specified in the helpCmdKey parameter. Apple Guide invokes a guide file of type HELP when the user presses Command-Shift-? (regardless of the contents of the helpCmdKey parameter). If you provide a character in the helpCmdKey parameter for a guide file of type HELP, Apple Guide also invokes the guide file when the user presses Command and the specified character.

Four special positions are reserved near the top of the Help menu for guide files of type ABOUT, TUTORIAL, HELP, and SHORTCUTS. Only one of each of these types of guide files is displayed in the Help menu. However, you can have as many guide files of type OTHER as you choose. Apple Guide displays menu items for guide files of type OTHER in alphabetical order at the bottom of the Help menu.

SPECIAL CONSIDERATIONS

The <Help Menu> command should appear once at most in your source files for a specific guide file. If you omit this command when you compile a new guide file, Guide Maker assigns your guide file the type HELP and the name "Application Guide" as the menu item text and does not display the Command-key symbol or "?". If you omit this command when recompiling a guide file, Guide Maker preserves any existing type or item text information.

EXAMPLES

#define menu item text for guide file of type HELP and 
# specify the Command-key equivalent that appears in the 
# Help menu for this guide file
<Help Menu> "SurfWriter Guide", HELP, "?"

#define menu item text for guide file of type TUTORIAL
<Help Menu> "SurfWriter Tutorial", TUTORIAL

#define menu item text for guide file of type OTHER
<Help Menu> "SurfWriter Write It For Me", OTHER

SEE ALSO

To specify balloon text for your guide file's menu item, use the <Balloon Menu Text> command, as described next.