/**************************************************************************** ** ** Copyright (C) 2019 The Qt Company Ltd. ** Contact: https://www.qt.io/licensing/ ** ** This file is part of the Qt Creator documentation. ** ** Commercial License Usage ** Licensees holding valid commercial Qt licenses may use this file in ** accordance with the commercial license agreement provided with the ** Software or, alternatively, in accordance with the terms contained in ** a written agreement between you and The Qt Company. For licensing terms ** and conditions see https://www.qt.io/terms-conditions. For further ** information use the contact form at https://www.qt.io/contact-us. ** ** GNU Free Documentation License Usage ** Alternatively, this file may be used under the terms of the GNU Free ** Documentation License version 1.3 as published by the Free Software ** Foundation and appearing in the file included in the packaging of ** this file. Please review the following information to ensure ** the GNU Free Documentation License version 1.3 requirements ** will be met: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/fdl-1.3.html. ** ****************************************************************************/ /*! \contentspage index.html \page creator-help.html \if defined(qtdesignstudio) \previouspage {Examples and Tutorials} \nextpage studio-faq.html \else \previouspage creator-help-overview.html \nextpage creator-faq.html \endif \title Using the Help Mode \QC comes fully integrated with Qt documentation and examples using the Qt Help plugin. \list \li To view documentation, switch to \uicontrol Help mode. \li To view context sensitive help on a Qt class or function as a tooltip, move the mouse cursor over the class or function. If help is not available, the tooltip displays type information for the symbol. \li To display the full help on a Qt class or function, press \key F1 or select \uicontrol {Context Help} in the context menu. The documentation is displayed in a pane next to the code editor, or, if there is not enough vertical space, in the fullscreen \uicontrol Help mode. \li To select and configure how the documentation is displayed in the \uicontrol Help mode, select \uicontrol Tools > \uicontrol Options > \uicontrol Help. \endlist The following image displays the context sensitive help in the \uicontrol Edit mode. \image qtcreator-context-sensitive-help.png If the help HTML file does not use a style sheet, you can change the font family, style, and size in \uicontrol Tools > \uicontrol Options > \uicontrol Help > \uicontrol General. \image qtcreator-help-options.png By default, you can use the mouse scroll wheel to zoom help pages. To disable this feature, deselect the \uicontrol {Enable scroll wheel zooming} check box. To switch to the editor context when you close the last help page, select the \uicontrol {Return to editor on closing the last page} check box. \section1 Viewing Function Tooltips To hide function tooltips by default, select \uicontrol {Tools > Options > Text Editor > Behavior > Show help tooltips using the mouse > On Shift+Mouseover}. You can still view the tooltips by pressing and holding down the \key Shift key. To use a keyboard shortcut for viewing help tooltips, select \uicontrol {Show help tooltips using keyboard shortcut (Alt)}. \section1 Finding Information in Qt Documentation \QC, \QSDK and other Qt deliverables contain documentation as .qch files. All the documentation is accessible in the \uicontrol Help mode. To find information in the documentation, select: \list \li \uicontrol Bookmarks to view a list of pages on which you have added bookmarks. \li \uicontrol Contents to see all the documentation installed on the development PC and to browse the documentation contents. \li \uicontrol Index to find information based on a list of keywords in all the installed documents. \li \uicontrol {Open Pages} to view a list of currently open documentation pages. \li \uicontrol Search to search from all the installed documents. \endlist \section2 Adding Bookmarks to Help Pages You can add bookmarks to useful help pages to easily find them later in the \uicontrol Bookmarks view. You can either use the page title as the bookmark or change it to any text. You can organize the bookmarks in folders in the view. \image qtcreator-help-add-bookmark-dlg.png "Add Bookmark dialog" To add a bookmark to an open help page: \list 1 \li Click the \inlineimage bookmark.png (\uicontrol {Add Bookmark}) button on the toolbar. \li In the \uicontrol {Add Bookmark} dialog, click \uicontrol OK to save the page title as a bookmark in the selected folder. \endlist To import and export bookmarks, select \uicontrol Tools > \uicontrol Options > \uicontrol Help > \uicontrol General > \uicontrol {Import Bookmarks} or \uicontrol {Export Bookmarks}. \section2 Full-text Search In the \uicontrol Search pane, you can use full-text search for finding a particular word in all the installed documents. Enter the term you are looking for, and select the \uicontrol Search button. All documents that contain the specified term are listed. The list is sorted by document version (if you have installed several Qt versions, for example) and the number of search hits that the documents contain. Select a document in the list to open it. \image qtcreator-help-search.png "Search pane" The following are examples of common search patterns: \list \li \c deep lists all the documents that contain the word \c deep. The search is not case sensitive. \li \c{deep*} lists all the documents that contain a word beginning with \c deep \li \c{deep copy} lists all documents that contain both \c deep and \c copy \li \c{"deep copy"} lists all documents that contain the phrase \c{deep copy} \endlist Full-text search is based on indexing all the installed documents the first time when you open the \uicontrol Search pane. If you add or remove documents, \QC recreates the index. If you cannot find words that you know are there, indexing might not have been completed for some reason. To regenerate the index, click \inlineimage reload_gray.png (\uicontrol {Regenerate Index}). Punctuation is not included in indexed terms. To find terms that contain punctuation, such as domain names, use the asterisk as a wild card. For example, to find \c {Pastebin.Com}, enter the search term \c {Pastebin*}. \section1 Adding External Documentation You can display external documentation in the \uicontrol Help mode. To augment or replace the documentation that ships with \QC and Qt: \list 1 \li Create a .qch file from your documentation. For information on how to prepare your documentation and create a .qch file, see \l{The Qt Help Framework}. \li To add the .qch file to \QC, select \uicontrol Tools > \uicontrol Options > \uicontrol Help > \uicontrol Documentation > \uicontrol Add. \endlist \section1 Detaching the Help Window By default, context-sensitive help is opened in a window next to the code editor when you press \key F1. If there is not enough vertical space, the help opens in the full-screen help mode. You can specify that the help always opens in full-screen mode or is detached to an external window. Select \uicontrol Tools > \uicontrol Options > \uicontrol Help > \uicontrol General and specify settings for displaying context-sensitive help in the \uicontrol {On context help} field. To detach the help window, select \uicontrol {Always Show in External Window}. \section1 Selecting the Start Page You can select the page to display when you open the \uicontrol Help mode in the \uicontrol Tools > \uicontrol Options > \uicontrol Help > \uicontrol General > \uicontrol {On help start} field. To display the page and help panes that were open when you exited the mode, select the \uicontrol {Show My Tabs from Last Session} option. However, Web pages are not opened, because loading them would slow down opening the \uicontrol Help mode. To display a particular page, select \uicontrol {Show My Home Page}, and specify the page in the \uicontrol {Home Page} field. To display a blank page, select the \uicontrol {Show a Blank Page} option. You can also select the \uicontrol {Use Blank Page} button to set a blank page as your home page. \section1 Using Documentation Filters You can filter the documents displayed in the \uicontrol Help mode to find relevant information faster. Select a filter from a list of filters (1). The contents of the \uicontrol Index and \uicontrol Contents pane in the sidebar change accordingly. \image qtcreator-help-filters.png "Help filters" You can modify the filters to include external documentation, for example, or you can define your own filters. To construct filters, you can use the filter attributes that are specified in the documentation. Each document contains at least one filter attribute. If several documents contain the same filter attribute, such as \c tools, you can use that attribute to include all those documents. To add filters: \list 1 \li Select \uicontrol {Tools > Options > Help > Filters > Add}. \li Enter a name for the filter and press \uicontrol {OK}. \li In \uicontrol Attributes, select the documents that you want to include in the filter. \image qtcreator-help-filter-attributes.png "Help filter attributes" \li Click \uicontrol OK. \li In the \uicontrol Help mode, select the filter in the list of filters to see the filtered documentation in the sidebar. \endlist To modify filters, select a filter in \uicontrol Filters, select the attributes, and then click \uicontrol Apply. To remove filters, select them in \uicontrol Filters, and click \uicontrol Remove. */