Re: [lmi] help implementation

[Greg Chicares]

On 2008-02-25 18:06Z, Vaclav Slavik wrote:
> Greg Chicares wrote:
>> I'm intrigued by your last sentence. Is there a simple change to
>> the following little piece of XRC that would let me see for myself
>> exactly what it means?

[snip patch that changes only three lines]

That has QWAN:
  http://www.c2.com/cgi/wiki?QualityWithoutaName
so I'd prefer to use it as much as possible. Let's call it
  Technique A: <help> elements in XRC files

Now, AIUI, that takes care of context help for controls on XRC
dialogs only. We also want some top-level help, independent of
dialogs, e.g.:

    User's guide
      Getting started
      Command reference
      ...
    Programmer's guide
      ...
    ...

and for that I suppose we need a different technique:
  Technique B: wxHelpController with external files
Let's assume for the moment that we choose wxHtmlHelpController
and put help text in html files, even though there's another
way for msw.

If we could do all of this in XRC, that would be tempting; but
AIUI XRC doesn't meet the needs that Technique B fills, right?

Then are Techniques A and B complementary, or do they interfere
with each other somehow--so that if we use Technique B at all,
then we must implement context help for dialog controls in html
instead of in XRC? If I understand correctly, there is no
conflict: we can add <help> elements to XRC files today, and
later add top-level html help. We might have to change
  wxHelpProvider::Set(new wxSimpleHelpProvider);
to use wxHelpControllerHelpProvider, but that would still work
with Technique A, right? If so, then I think that sounds like
the best strategy; am I overlooking anything?