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**
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** Copyright (C) 2009 Nokia Corporation and/or its subsidiary(-ies).
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** All rights reserved.
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** Contact: Nokia Corporation (qt-info@nokia.com)
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** This file is part of the documentation of the Qt Toolkit.
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****************************************************************************/
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/*!
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\example help/simpletextviewer
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\title Simple Text Viewer Example
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The Simple Text Viewer example shows how to use \QA as a customized
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help viewer for your application.
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This is done in two stages. Firstly, documentation is created and \QA
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is customized; secondly, the functionality to launch and control
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\QA is added to the application.
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\image simpletextviewer-example.png
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The Simple Text Viewer application lets the user select and view
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existing files.
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The application provides its own custom documentation that is
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available from the \gui Help menu in the main window's menu bar
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or by clicking the \gui Help button in the application's find file
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dialog.
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The example consists of four classes:
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\list
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\o \c Assistant provides functionality to launch \QA.
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\o \c MainWindow is the main application window.
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\o \c FindFileDialog allows the user to search for
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files using wildcard matching.
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\o \c TextEdit provides a rich text browser that makes
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sure that images referenced in HTML documents are
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displayed properly.
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\endlist
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Note that we will only comment on the parts of the implementation
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that are relevant to the main issue, that is making Qt Assistant
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act as a customized help viewer for our Simple Text Viewer
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application.
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\section1 Creating Documentation and Customizing \QA
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How to create the actual documentation in the form of HTML pages is
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not in the scope of this example. In general, HTML pages can either
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be written by hand or generated with the help of documentation tools
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like qdoc or Doxygen. For the purposes of this example we assume that
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the HTML files have already been created. So, the only thing that
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remains to be done is to tell \QA how to structure and display the
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help information.
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\section2 Organizing Documentation for \QA
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Plain HTML files only contain text or documentation about specific topics,
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but they usually include no information about how several HTML documents
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relate to each other or in which order they are supposed to be read.
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What is missing is a table of contents along with an index to access
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certain help contents quickly, without having to browse through a lot
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of documents in order to find a piece of information.
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To organize the documentation and make it available for \QA, we have
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to create a Qt help project (.qhp) file. The first and most important
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part of the project file is the definition of the namespace. The namespace
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has to be unique and will be the first part of the page URL in \QA.
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In addition, we have to set a virtual folder which acts as a common
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folder for documentation sets. This means, that two documentation sets
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identified by two different namespaces can cross reference HTML files
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since those files are in one big virtual folder. However, for this
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example, we'll only have one documentation set available, so the
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virtual folder name and functionality are not important.
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\code
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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
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<QtHelpProject version="1.0">
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<namespace>com.trolltech.examples.simpletextviewer</namespace>
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<virtualFolder>doc</virtualFolder>
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\endcode
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The next step is to define the filter section. A filter section
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contains the table of contents, indices and a complete list of
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all documentation files, and can have any number of filter attributes
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assigned to it. A filter attribute is an ordinary string which can
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be freely chosen. Later in \QA, users can then define a custom
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filter referencing those attributes. If the attributes of a filter
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section match the attributes of the custom filter the documentation
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will be shown, otherwise \QA will hide the documentation.
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Again, since we'll only have one documentation set, we do not need
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the filtering functionality of \QA and can therefore skip the
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filter attributes.
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Now, we build up the table of contents. An item in the table is
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defined by the \c section tag which contains the attributes for the
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item title as well as link to the actual page. Section tags can be
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nested infinitely, but for practical reasons it is not recommended
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to nest them deeper than three or four levels. For our example we
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want to use the following outline for the table of contents:
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\list
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\o Simple Text Viewer
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\list
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\o Find File
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\list
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\o File Dialog
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\o Wildcard Matching
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\o Browse
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\endlist
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\o Open File
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\endlist
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\endlist
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In the help project file, the outline is represented by:
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\code
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<filterSection>
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<toc>
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<section title="Simple Text Viewer" ref="index.html">
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<section title="Find File" ref="./findfile.html">
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<section title="File Dialog" ref="./filedialog.html"></section>
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<section title="Wildcard Matching" ref="./wildcardmatching.html"></section>
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<section title="Browse" ref="./browse.html"></section>
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</section>
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<section title="Open File" ref="./openfile.html"></section>
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</section>
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</toc>
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\endcode
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After the table of contents is defined, we will list all index keywords:
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\code
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<keywords>
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<keyword name="Display" ref="./index.html"/>
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<keyword name="Rich text" ref="./index.html"/>
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<keyword name="Plain text" ref="./index.html"/>
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<keyword name="Find" ref="./findfile.html"/>
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<keyword name="File menu" ref="./findfile.html"/>
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<keyword name="File name" ref="./filedialog.html"/>
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<keyword name="File dialog" ref="./filedialog.html"/>
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<keyword name="File globbing" ref="./wildcardmatching.html"/>
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<keyword name="Wildcard matching" ref="./wildcardmatching.html"/>
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<keyword name="Wildcard syntax" ref="./wildcardmatching.html"/>
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<keyword name="Browse" ref="./browse.html"/>
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<keyword name="Directory" ref="./browse.html"/>
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<keyword name="Open" ref="./openfile.html"/>
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<keyword name="Select" ref="./openfile.html"/>
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</keywords>
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\endcode
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As the last step, we have to list all files making up the documentation.
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An important point to note here is that all files have to listed, including
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image files, and even stylesheets if they are used.
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\code
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<files>
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<file>browse.html</file>
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<file>filedialog.html</file>
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<file>findfile.html</file>
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<file>index.html</file>
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<file>intro.html</file>
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<file>openfile.html</file>
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<file>wildcardmatching.html</file>
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<file>images/browse.png</file>
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<file>images/*.png</file>
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</files>
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</filterSection>
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</QtHelpProject>
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\endcode
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The help project file is now finished. If you want to see the resulting
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documentation in \QA, you have to generate a Qt compressed help file
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out of it and register it with the default help collection of \QA.
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\code
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qhelpgenerator simpletextviewer.qhp -o simpletextviewer.qch
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assistant -register simpletextviewer.qch
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\endcode
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If you start \QA now, you'll see the Simple Text Viewer documentation
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beside the Qt documentation. This is OK for testing purposes, but
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for the final version we want to only have the Simple Text Viewer
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documentation in \QA.
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\section2 Customizing \QA
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The easiest way to make \QA only display the Simple Text Viewer
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documentation is to create our own help collection file. A collection
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file is stored in a binary format, similar to the compressed help file,
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and generated from a help collection project file (*.qhcp). With
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the help of a collection file, we can customize the appearance and even
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some functionality offered by \QA.
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At first, we change the window title and icon. Instead of showing "\QA"
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it will show "Simple Text Viewer", so it is much clearer for the user
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that the help viewer actually belongs to our application.
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\code
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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
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<QHelpCollectionProject version="1.0">
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<assistant>
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<title>Simple Text Viewer</title>
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<applicationIcon>images/handbook.png</applicationIcon>
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<cacheDirectory>Trolltech/SimpleTextViewer</cacheDirectory>
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\endcode
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The \c cacheDirectory tag specifies a subdirectory of the users
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data directory (see the
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\l{Using Qt Assistant as a Custom Help Viewer#Qt Help Collection Files}{Qt Help Collection Files})
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where the cache file for the full text search or the settings file will
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be stored.
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After this, we set the page displayed by \QA when launched for the very
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first time in its new configuration. The URL consists of the namespace
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and virtual folder defined in the Qt help project file, followed by the
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actual page file name.
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\code
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<startPage>qthelp://com.trolltech.examples.simpletextviewer/doc/index.html</startPage>
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\endcode
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Next, we alter the name of the "About" menu item to "About Simple
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Text Viewer". The contents of the \gui{About} dialog are also changed
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by specifying a file where the about text or icon is taken from.
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\code
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<aboutMenuText>
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<text>About Simple Text Viewer</text>
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</aboutMenuText>
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<aboutDialog>
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<file>about.txt</file>
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<icon>images/icon.png</icon>
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</aboutDialog>
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\endcode
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\QA offers the possibility to add or remove documentation via its
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preferences dialog. This functionality is helpful when using \QA
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as the central help viewer for more applications, but in our case
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we want to actually prevent the user from removing the documentation.
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So, we disable the documentation manager.
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Since the address bar is not really relevant in such a small
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documentation set we switch it off as well. By having just one filter
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section, without any filter attributes, we can also disable the filter
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functionality of \QA, which means that the filter page and the filter
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toolbar will not be available.
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\code
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<enableDocumentationManager>false</enableDocumentationManager>
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<enableAddressBar>false</enableAddressBar>
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<enableFilterFunctionality>false</enableFilterFunctionality>
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</assistant>
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\endcode
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For testing purposes, we already generated the compressed help file
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and registered it with \QA's default help collection. With the
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following lines we achieve the same result. The only and important
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difference is that we register the compressed help file, not in
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the default collection, but in our own collection file.
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\code
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<docFiles>
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<generate>
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<file>
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<input>simpletextviewer.qhp</input>
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<output>simpletextviewer.qch</output>
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</file>
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</generate>
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<register>
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<file>simpletextviewer.qch</file>
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</register>
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</docFiles>
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</QHelpCollectionProject>
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\endcode
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As the last step, we have to generate the binary collection file
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out of the help collection project file. This is done by running the
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\c qcollectiongenerator tool.
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\code
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qcollectiongenerator simpletextviewer.qhcp -o simpletextviewer.qhc
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\endcode
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To test all our customizations made to \QA, we add the collection
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file name to the command line:
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\code
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assistant -collectionFile simpletextviewer.qhc
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\endcode
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\section1 Controlling \QA via the Assistant Class
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We will first take a look at how to start and operate \QA from a
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remote application. For that purpose, we create a class called
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\c Assistant.
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This class provides a public function that is used to show pages
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of the documentation, and one private helper function to make sure
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that \QA is up and running.
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Launching \QA is done in the function \c startAssistant() by simply
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creating and starting a QProcess. If the process is already running,
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the function returns immediately. Otherwise, the process has
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to be set up and started.
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\snippet examples/help/simpletextviewer/assistant.cpp 2
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To start the process we need the executable name of \QA as well as the
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command line arguments for running \QA in a customized mode. The
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executable name is a little bit tricky since it depends on the
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platform, but fortunately it is only different on Mac OS X.
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The displayed documentation can be altered using the \c -collectionFile
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command line argument when launching \QA. When started without any options,
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\QA displays a default set of documentation. When Qt is installed,
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the default documentation set in \QA contains the Qt reference
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documentation as well as the tools that come with Qt, such as Qt
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Designer and \c qmake.
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In our example, we replace the default documentation set with our
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custom documentation by passing our application-specific collection
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file to the process's command line options.
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As the last argument, we add \c -enableRemoteControl, which makes \QA
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listen to its \c stdin channel for commands, such as those to display
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a certain page in the documentation.
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Then we start the process and wait until it is actually running. If,
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for some reason \QA cannot be started, \c startAssistant() will return
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false.
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The implementation for \c showDocumentation() is now straightforward.
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Firstly, we ensure that \QA is running, then we send the request to
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display the \a page via the \c stdin channel of the process. It is very
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important here that the command is terminated by the '\\0' character
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followed by an end of line token to flush the channel.
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\snippet examples/help/simpletextviewer/assistant.cpp 1
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Finally, we make sure that \QA is terminated properly in the case that
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the application is shut down. The destructor of QProcess kills the
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process, meaning that the application has no possibility to do things
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like save user settings, which would result in corrupted settings files.
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To avoid this, we ask \QA to terminate in the destructor of the
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\c Assistant class.
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\snippet examples/help/simpletextviewer/assistant.cpp 0
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\section1 MainWindow Class
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\image simpletextviewer-mainwindow.png
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The \c MainWindow class provides the main application window with
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two menus: the \gui File menu lets the user open and view an
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existing file, while the \gui Help menu provides information about
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the application and about Qt, and lets the user open \QA to
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display the application's documentation.
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To be able to access the help functionality, we initialize the
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\c Assistant object in the \c MainWindow's constructor.
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\snippet examples/help/simpletextviewer/mainwindow.cpp 0
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\dots
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\snippet examples/help/simpletextviewer/mainwindow.cpp 1
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Then we create all the actions for the Simple Text Viewer application.
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Of special interest is the \c assistantAct action accessible
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via the \key{F1} shortcut or the \menu{Help|Help Contents} menu item.
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This action is connected to the \c showDocumentation() slot of
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the \c MainWindow class.
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\snippet examples/help/simpletextviewer/mainwindow.cpp 4
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\dots
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\snippet examples/help/simpletextviewer/mainwindow.cpp 5
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In the \c showDocumentation() slot, we call the \c showDocumentation()
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function of the \c Assistant class with the URL of home page of the
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documentation.
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\snippet examples/help/simpletextviewer/mainwindow.cpp 3
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Finally, we must reimplement the protected QWidget::closeEvent()
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event handler to ensure that the application's \QA instance is
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properly closed before we terminate the application.
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\snippet examples/help/simpletextviewer/mainwindow.cpp 2
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\section1 FindFileDialog Class
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\image simpletextviewer-findfiledialog.png
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The Simple Text Viewer application provides a find file dialog
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allowing the user to search for files using wildcard matching. The
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search is performed within the specified directory, and the user
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is given an option to browse the existing file system to find the
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relevant directory.
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In the constructor we save the references to the \c Assistant
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and \c QTextEdit objects passed as arguments. The \c Assistant
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object will be used in the \c FindFileDialog's \c help() slot,
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as we will see shortly, while the QTextEdit will be used in the
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dialog's \c openFile() slot to display the chosen file.
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\snippet examples/help/simpletextviewer/findfiledialog.cpp 0
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\dots
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\snippet examples/help/simpletextviewer/findfiledialog.cpp 1
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The most relevant member to observe in the \c FindFileDialog
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class is the private \c help() slot. The slot is connected to the
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dialog's \gui Help button, and brings the current \QA instance
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to the foreground with the documentation for the dialog by
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calling \c Assistant's \c showDocumentation() function.
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\snippet examples/help/simpletextviewer/findfiledialog.cpp 2
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\section1 Summary
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In order to make \QA act as a customized help tool for
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your application, you must provide your application with a
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process that controls \QA in addition to a custom help collection
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file including Qt compressed help files.
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The \l{Using Qt Assistant as a Custom Help Viewer} document contains
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more information about the options and settings available to
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applications that use \QA as a custom help viewer.
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*/
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