Help context

Help is set up to follow the modules' context.

In the Help Viewer you find a drop-down list box at the top left, where you can select another module or context.

When a user opens Help from within Writer, the user will see the Writer Help. The same is true for the other modules, Calc, Draw, Impress, Base, Basic, and Math.

By selecting another entry from the list box, the user can switch to another module's main help page.

Every context has its own set of index entries and find/search inventory. So, when you are inside the Writer help, you cannot search for a Calc function.

However, many Help topics apply to all of the modules, or to at least two of the modules. The respective Help pages and index entries are part of a 'shared' Help module, which is available for all contexts.

Why contexts?

The Application Help source files use custom tags called 'switches' to display different help texts with respect to the current context. A typical part of the source can look like the following example.

<switch select="appl">
 <case select="IMPRESS">
    <bookmark xml-lang="en-US" branch="hid/HID_FILESAVE_DOPLAY" id="bm_id3145324" localize="false"/>
    <paragraph role="heading" id="hd_id3149984">Play</paragraph>
    <paragraph role="paragraph" id="par_id3147289"><ahelp hid=".">Plays the selected sound file. Click again to stop playing the sound file.</ahelp></paragraph>
 </case>
</switch>

In this edited example from the help source for the file open dialog, a part of the text is shown only when the current context is "IMPRESS". Only in this case it can happen that the 'Open' button is called 'Play', and this gets another Help ID and the corresponding extended help text.

List of switches

Switches for operating system:

WIN
UNIX
MAC

Switches for application:

CALC
DRAW
IMPRESS
MATH
WRITER
BASIC

Notes on switches:

The MAC switch is depreciated, because the current Mac OS X is an UNIX system which no longer sets the MAC context. The Base module generates an own context but no switch is necessary.