DTHFFILE(4)

📦
version 2.5.3 · 2 versions
, in nixos 26.05

✨ NAME ✨

dthffile — define the format of CDE Help Family files. bestie, this is the dthffile special file page, and it's literally all about the CDE Help Family file format. 💅

🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

CDE
Help Family file format description.

That's the whole synopsis, no cap. ✨

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

Okay so the Family file is based on the X11 syntax for application resources. You use Family files with dthelpgen(1) to generate a browser Help volume, and that volume lets users navigate through all of the available Help information. 🫶

The Family file, &<filename>.hf, contains the following fields: character set, title, abstract, volume list and an optional image name. Not me listing them all below 💅

charSet — the charSet field is the standard CDE locale and code set value to be used in parsing the title and abstract fields of the Family file. The default value is en_US.iso8859-1. See the CDE Help System Author's and Programmer's for a complete list of supported locales and code sets. 🌍

🚨 warning bestie: the Family title and abstract must not contain any HelpTag markup as this file is not processed by the HelpTag software. Periodt. 💀

title — the title field is the title of the family, literally what gets displayed in the top-level of the browser Help volume. 👑

abstract — the abstract field is the abstract for the Family. It's used to describe the family and give info about what type of volumes are in this Family or why these volumes are related. If the abstract is long, you can use the backslash character \ to continue to the next line. 📝

volumes — the volumes field says which volumes belong to the Family. They're listed in the order they appear on this line. A volume may be listed in more than one Family. This is a list of volume names separated by spaces. The ending .sdl extension must be specified if the search path contains a %H rather than an %H.sdl. See DtHelpDialog(3) for more information about CDE Help search path syntax and use. 📚

[bitmap] — the [bitmap] field is the image that pictorially describes the Family. This image is displayed in the top-level browser volume just under the Family title, and to the left of the abstract text. 🎨

The icon file is optional. If one is provided, the path used to specify the location of the file should be a complete pathname. If an icon file is not provided, the *.bitmap resource in the Family file should not be provided. 🖼️

🎨 Supported Graphics Formats 🎨

  • *.xwd — X11 XWD file
  • *.tif — TIFF 5.0 image file
  • *.pm — X11 X Pixmap file
  • *.bm — X11 Bitmap file

🛍️ Registering A Product Family 🛍️

To register a product family, create and install a Help Family file (product.hf) with the rest of the product's Help files. Register the Family file by running the dtappintegrate script, which creates a symbolic link to the product.hf file. For most products, the appropriate place for the link is /nix/store/6waxpwr8lzfzc9ka48gl7yh60rqvlkdb-cde-2.5.3/etc/appconfig/help/language/. See dtappintegrate(1) for more information on registering Help within the desktop. 🔗

💖 EXAMPLES 💖

okay bestie, here's the actual example vibe: 🦋

*.charSet:
          iso8859-1

*.title:  Developer's Information About The Help System

*.abstract:
          Abstract giving a short description about the Help system.

*.volumes:
          helpkit.sdl helpdemo.sdl

*.bitmap: /usr/local/bitmap/helpGraphic.bm

🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

💖 that's the whole dthffile (special file) page, bestie! The footer in this copy is literally just dthffile(special file) — no source/version or date listed, so that's all we have. 🫶

📦 where this page comes from