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Important: The information in this document is obsolete and should not be used for new development.

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Inside Macintosh: More Macintosh Toolbox /
Chapter 3 - Help Manager / Help Manager Reference
Resources


The Finder Icon Help Resource

The Help Manager displays default help messages for all Finder icon types. By creating a Finder icon help override resource, you can provide your own help message for the Help Manager to display when the user moves the cursor over your non-document icons. A Finder icon help resource is a resource of type 'hfdr'. An 'hfdr' resource must have a resource ID of -5696.

The format of a Rez input file for an 'hfdr' resource differs from its compiled output form. This section describes the structure of a Rez-compiled 'hfdr' resource. If you are concerned only with creating 'hfdr' resources, see "Overriding Help Balloons for Non-Document Icons" on page 3-78 for a detailed description of how to use Rez input files to create an 'hfdr' resource.

An 'hfdr' resource consists of a header component and one icon component.
Figure 3-41 shows the general structure of a compiled 'hfdr' resource.

Figure 3-41 Structure of a compiled Finder icon help ('hfdr') resource

If you examine a compiled version of an 'hfdr' resource, you find that the header component consists of the following elements:

The structure of the icon component depends on the identifier specified for that component. The identifiers used in a Rez input file are described in "Specifying the Format for Help Messages" on page 3-21.

Figure 3-42 shows the structure of an icon component that stores its help message as a Pascal string within the 'hfdr' resource itself.

Figure 3-42 Structure of an 'hfdr' component compiled with the HMStringItem identifier

If you examine a compiled version of an 'hfdr' resource, you find that a component identified in a Rez input file by the HMStringItem identifier consists of the following elements:

Figure 3-43 shows the structure of an icon component that specifies its help message as a text string stored in a string list ('STR#') resource.

Figure 3-43 Structure of an 'hfdr' component compiled with the HMStringResItem identifier

If you examine a compiled version of an 'hfdr' resource, you find that a component identified in a Rez input file by the HMStringResItem identifier consists of the following elements:

Figure 3-44 shows the structure of an icon component that specifies its help message in a picture ('PICT') resource, in styled text ('TEXT' and 'styl') resources, or in a string ('STR ') resource.

Figure 3-44 Structure of an 'hfdr' component compiled with the HMPictItem, HMTEResItem, or HMSTRResItem identifier

If you examine a compiled version of an 'hfdr' resource, you find that a component identified in a Rez input file by either the HMPictItem, HMTEResItem, or HMSTRResItem identifier consists of the following elements:

Figure 3-45 shows the structure of an icon component that doesn't specify a help message.

Figure 3-45 Structure of an 'hfdr' component compiled with the HMSkipItem identifier

If you examine a compiled version of an 'hfdr' resource, you find that a component identified by the HMSkipItem identifier consists of the following elements:


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© Apple Computer, Inc.
6 JUL 1996