When you encode a file—that is, when you build a help database—you must specify the /E option. HELPMAKE also accepts other options to control encoding. The encoding options are listed below:
| /Ac |
Specifies c as an application-specific control character for the help database file. The character marks a line that contains special information for internal use by the application. For example, the Microsoft Advisor uses the colon (:). |
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| /C |
Makes context strings for this help file case sensitive. |
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| /E[[n]] |
Creates (encodes) a help database from a specified text file. The n specifies the type(s) of compression. If n is omitted, HELPMAKE compresses the file as much as possible (about 50%). The value of n is in the range 0–15. It is the sum of successive integral powers of 2 representing various compression techniques: |
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Value |
Technique |
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0 |
No compression |
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1 |
Run-length compression |
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2 |
Keyword compression |
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4 |
Extended keyword compression |
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8 |
Huffman compression |
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Add values to combine compression techniques. For example, use /E3 to get run-length and keyword compres-sion. Use /E0 in the testing stages of help database creation where you need to create the database quickly and are not yet concerned with size. |
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| /Kfilename |
Optimizes keyword compression by supplying a list of characters that act as word separators. The filename is a file containing your list of separator characters. |
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The /E2 and /E3 options tell HELPMAKE to identify “keywords”—words occurring often enough to justify replacing them with shorter character sequences. A word is any series of characters that do not appear in the separator list. The default separator list includes all ASCII characters from 0 to 32, ASCII character 127, and the following characters: |
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!"#&`'()*+–,/:;<=>?@[\]^_{|}~ |
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You can improve keyword compression by designing a separator list tailored to a specific help file. If your help file contains #include directives, #include is encoded (by default) as include. To encode #include as a keyword, create a separator list that omits the #: |
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! "&`'()*+–,/:;<=>?@[\]^_{|}~ |
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Characters in the range 0–31 are always separators, so you need not include them. A customized list must include all other separators, however, including the space (which follows ! in the list above). If you omit the space, HELPMAKE encodes sequences of words as keywords. |
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| /L |
Locks the generated file so that it cannot later be decoded. |
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| /NOLOGO |
Suppresses the HELPMAKE copyright message. |
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| /Ooutfile |
Specifies outfile as the name of the help database. |
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| /Sn |
Specifies the type of input file, according to the following n values: |
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Option |
File Type |
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/S1 |
Rich Text Format (RTF) |
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/S2 |
QuickHelp (default) |
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/S3 |
Minimally formatted ASCII |
| /T |
Translates dot commands into internal format. If your help file contains dot commands other than .context and .comment, you must supply this option when encoding it. Dot commands are described in Section 11.6.1,“QuickHelp Format,” and in later sections. The /T option causes the option /A: to be assumed. |
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| /V[[n]] |
Controls verbosity of diagnostic and informational output. Larger values of n add more information. Omitting n produces a full listing. The values of n are listed below: |
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Option |
Output |
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/V |
Maximum diagnostic output |
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/V0 |
No diagnostic output and no banner |
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/V1 |
HELPMAKE banner only |
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/V2 |
Pass names |
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/V3 |
Contexts on first pass |
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/V4 |
Contexts on each pass |
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/V5 |
Any intermediate steps within each pass |
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/V6 |
Statistics on help file and compression |
| /Wwidth |
Indicates the fixed width of the resulting help text in number of characters. The value of width can range from 11 to 255. If the /W option is omitted, the default is 76. When encoding an RTF source (/S1), HELPMAKE automatically formats the text to width. When encoding QuickHelp (/S2) or minimally formatted ASCII (/S3) files, HELPMAKE truncates lines to this width. |
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