## An Overview of the Help File's Structure and Interface

When you install PC-DMIS, you are supplied with a compiled HTML Help file (a file with a .chm extension) that resides in the same directory as the PC-DMIS executable. Double clicking on this file, or pressing F1 at any time inside PC-DMIS, launches the core PC-DMIS Help File inside of an HTML Help viewer. The PC-DMIS Help file initially shows a welcome topic. This topics contains links to all the other installed help files as well as information to get you started with that particular version of PC-DMIS:

The PC-DMIS Help File

Toolbar:

The Toolbar contains these buttons:

- Show / Hide – This button shows and hides the Search Pane. The Search Pane contains the Contents, index, Search, Favorites, and Glossary tabs used to browse through or search for topics. (In non-English versions, the Glossary is sometimes displayed in toolbar.)

- Locate – This button synchronizes the topic you're currently viewing in the Topic Pane with the expandable and collapsible view of the topics in the Contents tab, essentially locating the topic in the Contents tab. Synchronization with the Contents tab is usually done automatically without needing to click this button, but there are times when it is needed. See "Searching the Help by Browsing Contents and Topics" for more information.

- Back / Forward – These buttons act just like the back and forward buttons on an internet browser. They store the topics you are visiting when browsing through the help file and you can easily cycle backward to topics viewed in the past or forward to the most recently viewed topics.

- Home – This button opens the introductory welcome topic for the PC-DMIS Help Files. From the welcome topic you can get links to all the installed help files.

- Print – This button lets you print the contents of the Topic Pane. Clicking this will display a standard Print dialog box where you can choose the printer to accept the topic's content. This is good for quick printouts of one or two topics. If you need several topics printed in a printable manual format you might want to consider downloading a printable manual. To do this, follow the link on the welcome topic.

- Options – Allows you to set miscellaneous options for the Help file.

Search Pane: Clicking the Show button opens the Search Pane. This pane displays the following tabs that are used to search for and store topics (clicking Hide hides this pane):

- Contents – This tab allows you to search by contents. See "Searching the Help by Browsing Contents and Topics".

- Index – This tab allows you to search by index entry. See "Searching the Help with Index Terms".

- Search – This tab allows you to search for matching text. See "Searching the Help for Matching Text".

- Favorites – This tab allows you to store favorite topics for later use. See "Storing Favorite Help Topics".

- Glossary – This tab displays descriptions of various terms used in the help file.

The rest of this chapter discusses how to search for topics and store topics.

Browse Sequences: Browse sequences exist in a special area between the Toolbar area and Topic Pane:

They provide you with an alternate way to browse between a series of topics. Note, that it only goes through items at the topic's current tree level in the Contents tab. (Browse sequences are not available for non-English help systems.)

Topic Pane: The Topic Pane is the main part of the Help File. It displays the content for selected topics.