Managing Many Help Files

If you have a large number of Help files, you may reach a limit on the number of physical Help files or Help databases that can be open at one time. QuickHelp, PWB, and CodeView display a message when you have too many Help files. If this is the case, you must do one or more of the following:

Delete all obsolete Help files.

Move rarely used Help files to another directory. You can then open these files as you need them.

Concatenate some Help files.

It is recommended that you always keep ADVISOR.HLP. Moreover, for Help on error messages, you must use the Help file for the tool that issues the error. It is recommended that you save backup copies of all Help files before concatenating, splitting, or deleting any files.

To open and close Help files in PWB, use the SetHelp function. To open and close Help files in QuickHelp, choose the Open Database and Close Database commands from the File menu.

You can get a listing of the open Help files in PWB and QuickHelp. These lists show the open Help files, the Help databases contained in the files, and the title for each database if it has one. To get a list of open Help files in PWB, execute the function sequence Arg ? SetHelp. With the default keystrokes, press ALT+A, type a question mark (?), then press SHIFT+CTRL+S. To get a list of open Help files in QuickHelp, choose the List Databases command from the File menu. Once you have created the list of Help files, you can print it for later reference.

Concatenating Help Files

To concatenate two or more physical Help files, use the MS-DOS COPY command. The syntax for using the COPY command to combine Help files is:

COPY file /b [[+ file /b]]...newfile

Use a plus sign (+) between the filenames of the original Help files. Specify the /b option to copy the files as binary files. If you don't specify a new filename, the resulting file takes the name of the first file and the original file is overwritten.

You can use this command to combine two Microsoft Advisor Help files. For example, to create a physical Help file named ADVISOR.HLP that contains ADVISOR.HLP and QH.HLP, use the following command:

COPY ADVISOR.HLP /b + QH.HLP /b

You can also combine your own Help file (created using HELPMAKE) with Microsoft Help files.

Splitting Help Files

To split a physical Help file into its component databases, use the HELPMAKE utility. The syntax for using HELPMAKE to split a Help file is:

HELPMAKE /DS file

Specify the /DS option when splitting a Help file. For more information on the /DS option, as well as other uses of HELPMAKE, see Chapter 20. HELPMAKE creates individual physical files with the name of the original Help database. The resulting files are created in the current directory.

For example, the following command extracts the component Help databases from the UTILS.HLP file:

HELPMAKE /DS UTILS.HLP

The UTILS.HLP file itself is not changed. You can delete the unneeded component files and then concatenate the remaining files to create a new version of UTILS.HLP.