Help Menu

Targets macOS
1

Hello,

I am finalizing my first app using Xojo. This is a small utility to send midi notes.

I would like to know how to manage the help menu and what the search field of this menu points to. How to write a small help page for my application accessible from this help menu item?

Thanks for your help

2

Does anyone still use the macOS help? Your best options are to include the help as html files within the app bundle. Or you use a website as manual and point your users to the website.

I’m using the latter. I have a website made with RapidWeaver for my manual at https://manual.mothsoftware.com/ . System.GoToUrl and that’s it.

1 Like
3

Does the search field works with your solution @Beatrix_Willius ?

4

There is just a website which - of course - has a search.

5

I have already a link to the help page in the help menu. My question was about the search field menu items in the Help Menu. I know that a small part of user reads the documentation ^^

6

Sorry, that comes from macOS. It only searches the menu items. Please check the search in Safari or similar. It doesn’t do much.

7

In one of my projects, and because I forget how some features works, I added a local help reminder [a “i” graphic icon).
When clicked, a window opens and explains that feature. I really love it.

That feature is to convert dates from whatever (May 1st; 1st May; etc. replace ‘/’ or ‘.’ with ‘-’, etc.) to SQLDate in a ListBox Column. (not related to data base) But I may have added that to some other features


8

The search field in the Help menu searchs your menus and displays matching entries.

You can write a Apple Help with a small app called “Help Crafter” available in the Mac App Store and include it in your app - I am using Sam Rowlands “AppWrapper” to include the AppleHelp files in my apps.

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9

@Thomas_Roemert it’s look like a nice solution but 23€ for a free app with only 2 or 3 entry in the app documentation is too much money. Maybe for a further and more important project. Thanks for your suggestion

10

They finally updated Help Crafter after four years, which has fixed a couple of annoying bugs.

Adding keywords to search terms makes it even more useful for creating Help files.

Online help isn’t much good if you’re in a place with no wi-fi.

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