Manual
------
 Data Store 1990

Manual is a compact textfile display utility with
search and print facilities: in other words it is
ideal for displaying help files for applications
in a smaller amount of memory than Edit would use,
and whilst allowing the user to find references in
the text, does not risk corruption of the text
because it is a 'read only' system.

This program is contained within most Data Store
utilities and is accessed in two ways: either via
the Filer help facility or within the program
itself from an icon in its Info box.

To display help via the Filer, you do the
following: click MENU whilst pointing at an
application, then slide across the 'App' option in
the menu, and then click SELECT on then 'Help'
option in that menu.

To display help from a running Data Store
application, bring up its main menu, and slide
across the first option which is Info. The Info
box will appear which has the icon 'On-line
Manual' at the bottom. Click on this icon to bring
up the manual.

Scrolling the manual
--------------------
You can scroll up and down the text using the
scroll bars of the window or by using the cursor
keys/Page Up and Page Down keys on the keyboard.

The Find facility
-----------------
Clicking MENU over the text will bring up
Manual's menu. This contains the option
'Find...'. You can search for any string of three
or more characters by clicking on this to open a
dialogue box in which you enter your search string
and then press RETURN or click on OK. After a
brief pause the dialogue box will be updated
to show how many matches were found. The first
match is highlighted and displayed in the middle
of the window. You can scroll the window if you
wish to see more of the context. Clicking on 'Next
Match' will scroll the window automatically to
display the next match. Similarly, should you be
viewing the second or later match, you can scroll
backwards by clicking on 'Previous Match'.

The Print Facility
------------------
Clicking on 'Print' in the Manual menu will output
the text to your printer, so long as the
appropriate RISC OS Printer Driver is running. If
this is not the case, an error message will
appear.

Using Manual in your own Applications
------------------------------------- 
To do this, just copy !Manual into the
Application, and include within !Manual the
textfile you want displayed as a file called
'Manual'. The only limitations on the content of
the file are that (a) it must end in a carriage
return and (b) whatever is on the first line is
displayed in the title bar of the window after the
string 'On-line Manual for...', so it is best to
restrict the first line to the name of the
application.

You should also create an obey file within your
application called '!Help', which should contain
just one line:

RUN <obey$dir>.!Manual

This is so that the Filer help facility operates
correctly. You can of course be as creative as you
like in deciding how to access the on-line manual
within your own application: just because we at
The Data Store do it by including an icon in the
Info box doesn't mean you have to do it the same
way.
