Lingo Dictionary for DMX

 

update 10/19/03
I added today some handlers which create special help entries for maintaining your own bugbase. It works just like creating other help entries, but there are handlers to export all bugs as .txt, .rtf or .html. the second little difference, is that the default file for a new bug entry is different, than the default file for a help entry. To override the default you can provide a #textmember with the default text in one of your castlibs (or just open help.dir and change member("templateForNewBug"))

OSX help system sucks, because it is buggy and slow !

so I changed the help.dir which worked only with Director 8.5 to work again with DMX. it doesn't work on the windows version of DMX 'out of the box', because the windows version doesn't use html files anymore for the help. but you can put the mac help files from the folder Director/Contents/.../book into the folder customHelpFiles/Lingo if you want to use my tool instead of the built in help system. or you can also use the html help files from D 8.5 on windows instead. although on windows the help system doesn't suck so much as the OSX help system sucks, there are some benefits, when using this modified help.dir

the additional features in my help.dir movie:

 

HOW TO INSTALL:

Director MX:

simply drag 'help.dir' and the entire folder 'customHelpFiles' into your director xtras folder. Note: If you are on a windows system you will have to provide the html files, since the DiMX/windows version help system doesn't use single html files anymore for the help. Either copy the files into the folder 'Lingo' in the folder 'CustomHelpFiles' or hold down the ALT key while clicking on a link in the index to specify a custom location of the help files -> D 8.5 Help folder for example

Director 8.5:

copy 'help.dir' and the entire folder 'customHelpFiles' into the folder 'Help' in your director folder. (In D 8.5 you can take advantage of the context menu and shift-clicking the keywords menu to invoke help.dir at the correct keyword. UNFORTUNATELY macromedia chose to remove the hook fromn director to 'help.dir')

 

there is a perl script enclosed in this folder: searchDirHelp.pl

this perl scripts performs the search through the help files MUCH faster than lingo, of course. so if you are on OSX (or windows with a perl interpreter running) you can use this script instead, if you find it useful. in order to get it to work on OSX (I don't know how to on windows) do the following:

- start your apache http server by enabling personal web sharing from the sharing preferences pane (I'd recommend that you take a look at the VERY useful .menu tool 'sharingMenu' (http://www.mani.de/sharingmenu) if not already done so)

- copy the script searchDirHelp.pl into the folder /Library/WebServer/CGI_Executables/ (or if you have changed the default server configuration the folder with the executables) and change the permissions in order to make it executable: in the terminal: cp -f ~/Desktop/LingoDictionaryDMX/searchDirHelp.pl /Library/WebServer/CGI-Executables/searchDirHelp.pl chmod 755 /Library/WebServer/CGI-Executables/searchDirHelp.pl

help.dir simply calls: postnettext("http://127.0.0.1/cgi-bin/searchDirHelp.pl", params)

 

 

LAUNCHING THE DICTIONARY MOVIE WITH LINGO:

you can launch the help movie from the xtras menu in director or by using the following handler from *anywhere* else (-> in authoring):

  

-- xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
--  open director help miaw with searchstring <theText>
-- xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


on mGetHelp theText
  ap = the applicationpath
  delim = the last char of ap
  
  if integer((the environment).productVersion.char[1]) > 8 then helpPath = ap&"Xtras"&delim&"help.dir"
  else helpPath = ap&"Help"&delim&"help.dir"
  
  -- check if the miaw is already open
  isOpen = 0
  repeat with win in the windowlist
    if win.filename = helpPath then
      isOpen = 1
      exit repeat
    end if
  end repeat
  
  -- and open it if necessary
  if not isOpen then
    win = window("help")
    win.filename = helpPath
  end if
  
  open win
  
  -- tell the miaw to display the first matched substring
  tell win to mLingoDict theText
end

 

TIPS:

----------------------------- to create custom help/bug files:

An easier way of adding a new page is to have a textmember named exactly "templateForHelpMovie" (or "templateForNewBug" in case of a new bug entry) in your movies castlib, which will be taken as starting point for a new page. Thus you can write the text you want to appear on your new page into directors text editor, format the text and even add hyperlinks.

hyperlinks work either to the web -> beginning with "http://", "ftp://" or "mailto:" etc. or as lingo call beginning with "lingo:" (e.g. try <a href="lingo:beep">beep</a>) or to another site of these help pages, where the links are relative to the folder "customHelpFiles" in the xtras folder.

e.g. <a href="the_File"> searches first in:

So a link like <a href="havok/havok_ref_02.html"> will link to the file: havok_ref_02.html inside the folder "havok" inside the folder "customHelpFiles".

I hope you got the picture... ;-)

 

So if you want to write a documentation, write it in director into text members and then set the name of the member you want to add to "templateForHelpMovie". Or import your documentation written in Word as RTF members and then call:

 

tell helpwindow to mCreateEntry <newName>, <templateName>

or

repeat with n = 10 to 20
  tell helpwind to mCreateEntry member(n).name, member(n).name
end repeat

 

...or author the html files in dreamweaver or whatever... ;-)

 

 

-----------------------------

To delete a file delete all its contents (select all and hit delete) and 'save' the file, when asked to. this will delete the page and the corresponding entry in the index, as long as it is not a original lingo help file, which shouldn't get touched.

-----------------------------

you can format lingo snippets with the <pre> tag to preserve the spaces at the beginning of the line (formatting) and to colorize the keywords with the 'format' button.

-----------------------------

the modifier keys now provide basic textformatting via this 'format' button. If text is selected holding down the following keys changes the function:

- OPTION key = only add <pre> tag to preserve space count, but don't colorize

- CMD key = bold/un-bold selected chunk - CMD + OPTION key = italic/un-italic selected chunk

- SHIFT key = increase fontsize of selected chunk - SHIFT + OPTION key = decrease fontsize of selected chunk

-----------------------------

with the color chip next to the'format' button you can colorize the selected text. (hold down command to pick any color on stage)

 

-- xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

have fun and drop me a little note, if you find bugs, figure out improvements or add yourself improvements and bugfixes or just find it useful...

Alex da Franca