Q67312: Keywords Limited to 9 Characters When Adding to QB 4.50 Help

Article: Q67312
Product(s): See article
Version(s): 4.50
Operating System(s): MS-DOS
Keyword(s): ENDUSER | buglist4.50 | mspl13_basic
Last Modified: 5-DEC-1990

This article describes a specific problem encountered when adding to
the online help file (QB45QCK.HLP) for QuickBASIC version 4.50 using
HELPMAKE.EXE. The problem occurs only if you add a keyword that is
larger than 9 characters.

When the cursor is on a keyword larger than 9 characters and you press
the F1 key (context-sensitive help), the QuickBASIC environment
mistakenly displays QuickBASIC's "Symbol Help" screen for that
keyword, instead of the context-sensitive help that you added to the
help file. (The "Symbol Help" screen describes one of the symbols in
your program, such as a variable, SUB, or FUNCTION description.) This
behavior only occurs when you add keywords larger than 9 characters
and attempt to make them "context sensitive." However, you can still
access the help for the keyword you have added by choosing
QuickBASIC's Help menu, selecting Index, and then selecting the
correct topic in the index help screen.

This limitation applies only to Microsoft QuickBASIC version 4.50.
This limitation does not apply to the QuickBASIC extended environment
(QBX.EXE), which comes with the BASIC Professional Development System
(PDS) 7.00 and 7.10 for MS-DOS.

You can easily work around this problem. To select a customized
keyword from the QuickBASIC 4.50 environment, you should only add the
first 9 characters of the intended keyword to QuickBASIC's online help
file. For example, if you want to add AddMenuItem (an 11-character
keyword) to the help file, truncate AddMenuItem to AddMenuIt (9
characters). This lets you use the F1 key for context-sensitive help
in the environment. The side effect of this strategy is that pressing
F1 for a variable, such as AddMenuItemIndex% (or any other variable
where the first 9 characters are "AddMenuIt"), always gives the
context-sensitive help (Topic Help) that you added for AddMenuItem,
instead of QuickBASIC's Symbol Help.

For more information on how to modify QuickBASIC's online help file,
please refer to the HELPMAKE.DOC file distributed on disk with the
"HELPMAKE Utility Version 1.00 for QB 4.50" application note available
from Microsoft Product Support Services. The HELPMAKE utility is also
documented in Chapter 8, "HELPMAKE," in the "Microsoft QuickC Version
2.0: Toolkit" manual.

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