Q45837: QB 4.50 Help Incorrectly Displays Context Strings As Titles

Article: Q45837
Product(s): See article
Version(s): 4.50
Operating System(s): MS-DOS
Keyword(s): ENDUSER | S_QuickC S_QuickPas | mspl13_basic
Last Modified: 19-JUN-1989

When using the HELPMAKE utility to create new help screens for
QuickBASIC Version 4.50, you must use the ":n" command to force the
help screen titles to display correctly. If the context string is used
as the title, the first character of the title will not be printed.

There are two methods for specifying a help screen title for
customized help screens. Both are valid and work correctly in Quick
Pascal 1.00 and later and QuickC 2.00 and later. However, QuickBASIC
4.50's help system is slightly older and does not correctly display
titles that result from the first method. The two methods are as
follows:

1. Method 1: Using the context string as a title

   .context MyHelpContext
   :l13

   This method results in a help screen that is 13 lines long, with a
   title that reads as follows:

                   HELP: MyHelpContext

   QuickBASIC incorrectly displays the following:

                   HELP: yHelpContext

2. Method 2: Using the ":n" Command to specify a separate title

   .context MyFirstHelpContext
   .context MySecondHelpContext
   .context MyThirdHelpContext
   :l13
   :n MyHelpContext

   This method displays the "HELP: MyHelpContext" screen whenever the
   user requests information regarding any of the three help contexts
   listed just above the ":l" command. This is always displayed
   correctly by QuickBASIC (decoding QB45QCK.HLP shows that this is
   the method that the original programmers always used for
   QuickBASIC).

There is no way to work around this problem, other than to use the
":n" command to specify the title. The actual search mechanism
interprets the line correctly (as a context), so it is not possible to
alter the context string (by padding an extra character, for example)
and still have the help file work properly.

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