#THelpReader 2.07
This is a small utility designed to display nice-looking Help les, not just normal boring textfiles. You've no excuses now, young fella!

#TUsing HelpReader
 The window can be scrolled by dragging or moved with Shift+drag
 Clicking on a URL will open it in a web browser (if loaded)

#TUsing it in your own programs
Simply copy the !Help application inside your own application and replace the HelpText le with the !Help le for your application and add/change/delete the HelpSpr le as necessary. Please leave the HelpReader le intact.
Any textle can be loaded by dragging it into the HelpReader window. You can also make HelpReader load any le if you provide it with a lename. If no lename is provided, then HelpReader will load "!Help.HelpText" by default.
You can now include sprites in your HelpReader files. To do this you need to specify the name of a sprite file. If no sprite file is specified then HelpReader will attempt to load "!Help.HelpSpr". No error will be produced if the file cannot be found.
You can use !Squash to compress the sprite file if you wish - it will be decompressed automatically.

#TSyntax:
#CRun !Help [-load <lename>] [-sprite <lename>]

#TFile format
The les are stored with the letype plain text (&FFF), but contain several control codes which alter the appearance of the document. The control codes must be placed at the start of the line or paragraph you wish to apply the effect to.

#B##T - Title
#B##B - Bold
#B##I - Italic
#B##C - Program coding
#B##S - Sprite
You must specify the name of the sprite as shown below.
#C##Sspritename

Only press Return to force a linebreak - eg. at the end of a paragraph. The program will automatically wordwrap all the text. The le should end in a linefeed character by the way.

Unlike the previous versions, this version allows you to have helples of unlimited length, though mind you they tend to take a long time to load.

#TBoring legal gubbins
You are free to use and distribute HelpReader with your own programs, provided that no le (other than the 'Helptext' le) is modied, and that no charge is made for it (other than for media and distribution costs). If you are planning to use HelpReader in a commercial product then we would appreciate being informed about this - you can contact either Philip or Keith, it dsn't matter.

#THistory
#B1.00 (4 Jul 97) (PM)
 This was the rst version.

#B1.20 (10 Jul 98) (KMG)
 Made more memory efcient - the wimpslot was halved!
 Now reacts to wimp palette changes properly.
 Now handles changes to modes with different pixel sizes properly.

#B2.00 (4 Aug 1998) (KMG)
 Rewritten from scratch.
 File length limit of 256 lines gone (hurray!)
 Dependance on string arrays to store the data disposed of!
 Uses raw memory to store the text.
 and because of all this, it only uses 24k with a le loaded!

#B2.02 (6 Aug 1998) (KMG)
 Loading speed increased by not dumping the unused section of the read buffer.
 Hourglass added.

#B2.03 (29 Sep 1998) (KMG)
 Now uses absolute rather than relative line positioning
 hence a small, but nicely formed display & loading speed increase!
 Will now (theoretically) use only 16k on a RO3.5+ machine.

#B2.04 (15 Oct 1998) (KMG)
 Now ignores blank lines ie. it only increments the cursor position.
 And loads 5% faster too.

#B2.05 (31 Oct 1998) (PM)
 Clicking on a URL opens it in a web browser (if loaded)
 Dragging inside the window scrolls it. Shift+drag moves the window.

#B2.06 (1 Nov 1998) (PM)
 Allows the inclusion of sprites in the document.

#B2.07 (5 Nov 1998) (KMG)
 Program remodularised to ease future development.
 Redraw routine speed increased.
 Tries to ensure the most recent version of HelpReader is used.

#B Philip Mellor & Keith Gaughan, 1998

Philip:
#Imailto: yr92pm4@hors4th.demon.co.uk
#Iweb: http://members.tripod.com/~microsloth/index.htm

Keith:
#Imailto: kgaughan@geocities.com
#Iweb: http://members.xoom.com/dlmdesign/index.htm
