The Help Processor

The last step in setting up help automation is to define the name of the help processor program. Note that the help processor's entry point is always a COBOL program. The program can be the help processor itself, or a shell to some other help processor, such as Windows Help. The help processor is named by the value of the configuration variable HELP_PROGRAM. If HELP_PROGRAM is undefined, the runtime uses the name AcuHelp.

Calls to the help processor are handled by the run-time using the normal CALL mechanism. Regardless of the outcome of the CALL, when the CALL to the help processor completes, the run-time returns to the current control and continues normal operation.

The help processor is passed only one parameter, the EVENT STATUS data item. It contains the CMD-HELP event that generated the CALL. The CMD-HELP event contains all of the information needed to process the help request: the control's handle, its ID, its help ID (in EVENT-DATA-2) and the handle of its owning window. In the case of HELP-CURSOR, you can get the coordinates of the mouse when it was clicked on the control by calling W$MOUSE wth GET-MOUSE-STATUS before you do any ACCEPTs. Note that the position returned is relative to the control's owning window.