aboutsummaryrefslogtreecommitdiffstats
path: root/doc/src/howto/creator-help.qdoc
blob: 51bf69b810b458fd5b559d11c5b50f5a240fb828 (plain)
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
/****************************************************************************
**
** Copyright (C) 2018 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.
**
****************************************************************************/

// **********************************************************************
// NOTE: the sections are not ordered by their logical order to avoid
// reshuffling the file each time the index order changes (i.e., often).
// Run the fixnavi.pl script to adjust the links to the index order.
// **********************************************************************

/*!
    \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

    \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 > Options > Help >
    General Settings > Import} or \uicontrol Export.

    \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. In the \uicontrol {Search for}
    field, 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 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

    For more flexibility, use the \uicontrol {Advanced search}. Specify words to
    exclude from the search hits, or search for an exact phrase or for similar
    words. For example, searching for \c{QStin}, \c{QSting}, or \c{QStrin} lists
    all the documents with titles that are similar, such as \c{QString}.
    Combine options to improve the search results.

    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.

*/