Help Statement Syntax

Help statements are an extended subset of tokens defined by the rich-text-format (RTF) standard. The statements specify character and paragraph properties, such as font, color, spacing, and alignment for text in the help file.

Help statements are contained in topic files, which are specified in the [FILES] section of a project file. A topic file consists of statements, groups, and unformatted text. Each statement consists of a backslash (\) followed by a statement name. For example, the following line demonstrates usage of the \tab statement:

left column\tab right column
 

Statements must be separated from subsequent text or statement parameters by a delimiter. A delimiter can be one of the following:

    A space.

    A digit or minus sign, which indicates that a numeric parameter follows. The subsequent digit sequence is then delimited by a space or character other than a letter or digit.

    Any character other than a letter or digit.

When a space is used as a delimiter, the compiler discards it. If any other character is used, the compiler processes it as text or the start of another statement. For example, if a backslash is used as a delimiter, the compiler interprets it as the beginning of the next statement.

A group consists of help statements and text enclosed in braces ({ }). Formatting specified within a group affects only the text within that group. Text within a group inherits any formatting of the text preceding the group.

Unformatted text consists of any combination of 7-bit ASCII characters. Although characters whose values are greater than 127 are not permitted in topic files, the \' statement can be used to insert them in the final help file. The compiler treats spaces as part of the text, but it discards carriage return and linefeed characters.

Although the compiler supports many RTF tokens, it does not support them all. The compiler ignores any RTF statement that is not explicitly defined in the Help Author s Guide (HCW.HLP). Furthermore, the compiler may interpret an RTF token differently than it is specified by the standard. For example, the standard specifies that the \uldb statement indicates a double underline, but the compiler uses this statement to indicate a hot spot.