SHM Help File Editor

I find myself doing some pretty ambitious plugins. Most of them would benefit from an in-line help file. But creating a nice help file in LScript generally takes longer than writing the plugin.

Enter the SHM Help File Editor. Using a simple markup language, the Editor lets you quickly generate nice looking help files.

Enter text and image tags, hit OK, and the Editor spits out LScript code ready to be integrated into your script. I would encourage you to just run the script, as it contains a self-generated Help File that graphically demonstrates each command in the native LScript environment.

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SHM Help File Editor

Getting Started

When you run the editor, you will first be to set up your preferences for the help file.

I assume that you will be using the help as a separate Tab on the interface. To set it up properly,
enter the height and width of the existing requester panel you wish to integrate it into.

Next, choose the colors of the different interface elements. Until you get a feel for the editor, you can leave these at the default values.

When you hit OK, an editor window will appear. Because of differences in font size between the editor and the final display, the editor will be 20% wider to keep line length proper.

You can type directly into the window, or copy and paste text in from another editor.

There is no automatic word wrap!

You need to place hard returns in to keep the text with in the window. I may try to add this feature, but this is what you get for free.

Be aware: Currently, quotation marks are not supported, and will cause a crash. Please use 'single quote-marks.'

When you're done, you may want to copy and paste the text into an application with spell-check, then paste back the corrected version. It's also a good way to keep a backup, in case you want to tweak the output. (See also: '...what you get for free.')

When you hit OK, the LScript will be saved, and is written so that you can run it to see what the file will look like. The code is commented to tell you where the various bits go in your script.

The Command Set

There are two different kinds of commands recognized by the Editor, Head of the Line and Alone on the Line commands.

Alone on the Line commands sit on their own line, with no other text.

Head of the Line commands either sit at the beginning of a line of text, or have a set of parameters that follow them.

Very Important! Only one tag can be used per line.

I hope to have some in-line and multi-tag features available at some point, but for now...one per line.

Head of the Line Commands

Title Text T

• Makes Bold Text in the Title Color, with the Title Highlight and a separator.
• Form: TTitle Text Here

Subtitle Text t

• Makes Bold Text in the Subtitle Color, with the Subtitle Highlight and a separator.
• Form: tSubtitle Text Here

Image Tag i

• Inserts an image into the help file.
• Form: icomplete path to image here
• Example: iC:\LightWave_3D_7.0\Lscripts\Sean\test2.tga

Notes: Be sure to give a complete, valid path to a TGA image on your HD. The Editor will embed the image in the help file. These can quickly generate very large files, so use images sparingly.

Highlight Rectangler

• Makes a rectangle in the Highlight Box color r pixels high.
• Form: rheight of rectangle in pixels

Notes: The tag always needs to go on the line above the text you want to highlight, so that the text can write over the rectangle. Each line of text is 15 pixels high.

Spacer <->

• Makes a blank space a designated number of pixels high.
• Form: <->height in pixels

Alone on the Line commands

Separator s

• Makes a 3 pixel high Separator bar, in the Separator color.
• Form: s