Copyright: Copyright c 1992-1994, Sanjay Kanade


A note on quoted values

Double-quotes in quoted values

To use them you must repeat them for each single occurrence.

Continuation rules for quoted values

Please note that with the exception of LISTBROWSESEQ, all quoted values can be continued on the next line by ending the double-quotes on the preceding line and starting them again on the next line. This is for your convenience.

This continuation rule only applies to the attributes defined in special topics "~helpattributes" and "~rtfmacros". It does not apply to the text in your regular topics where it must be in one paragraph only.


Advantages of Help Generation

The advantages of help files are obvious. You can independently author and distribute study material in the form of HLP files without any accompanying program. It is very convenient for the user to study a subject presented in the Windows Help form.

So even if you are not a programmer, you may have a use for Help files. WhizNotes makes Help generation so simple that once you have the help compiler you can convert any of your WhizNote files into HLP files in a snap; then you can carry them around on a floppy. Anyone can use them on any system where Windows 3.1 is installed. No special software is required to look at these help files. It is as simple as that.


Basics of Help generation

If you have the Windows help compiler, you can convert your WhizNote files into Windows hypertext help with just a click on the menu. Creating jumps from one topic to another is as easy as a drag and drop. In fact, what you are reading now has been created by exclusively using WhizNotes along with the Windows help compiler. No other word processor was required! If you have ever tried to create Windows Help then you already know how complex it is. WhizNotes makes this process incredibly simple.

To get a quick demonstration of Help Generation, see Sample WZN file to demonstrate Help Generation.

You must have a Windows Help compiler

To take advantages of WhizNotes help generation you  must have the Microsoft help compiler. If you already have a Windows SDK or an equivalent then chances are that you already have the help compiler. See your SDK documentation for more details.

If you do not have the help compiler then you may contact Microsoft Corporation to find out how you may purchase one.

Tips for a power user

Normally, all your help text requirements will be met by just using WhizNotes and the help compiler. But in case you want to use a help feature not provided by WhizNotes, you can always edit the intermediate output file (RTF format) produced by WhizNotes by using a WYSIWYG RTF editor like MS Word.

Even if you are a power user, beginning the help documentation is much easier with WhizNotes. See The philosophy of WhizNotes to find out why I am saying that.

WhizNotes does not restrict you in any way. Rather, it compliments any help creation process that you may already be using.

Setting up the Help Compilation environment

WhizNotes now takes care of the following step for you. You may skip to the next point unless you are interested in the details or if WhizNotes is not able to invoke the compiler.

Let us assume that the help compiler executable is HC31.EXE. Before doing help generation in WhizNotes, you must use Windows File Manager to associate the file extension HPJ with HC31.EXE. See Windows documentation for details. If the help compiler is not on your DOS path then it is better to type in the full path name of the help compiler in the File Manager association. Please note that if extension HPJ has already been associated then WhizNotes does not disturb it. This means that WhizNotes will be able to invoke future versions of the help compiler provided you make the proper association for the HPJ extension in the File Manager.

Once you have setup this environment, you are ready to generate Windows help from your WhizNote files.

Prepare your WhizNotes to take advantage of Windows help

If you have inserted Jumps or Refs from one topic to another then WhizNotes converts them to proper Windows Help jumps and references (popups). This is very convenient. For details, see Inserting a jump to another topic.

Generating Windows Help

To create a Windows help file from your WhizNote window, select menu Tools-Create Help. A dialog box appears that allows you to choose various options for generating a Windows help file. For details, see WhizNotes Help Generation Dialog Box.

After you have specified your preferences on the above dialog box, the help compilation is started in a DOS window. When the compilation terminates, your help file is generated with the same filename as your WhizNote file but with an extension of HLP. WhizNotes gives you an opportunity to test this generated help. You can also test this help at any time by selecting menu Tools-Test Help. You may also directly test the help file by double-clicking on it in the File Manager. Please note that once you have created an HLP file, it is ready to be distributed to your customers and can be used on any PC where Windows 3.1 or later is installed.

Note that WhizNotes encodes some information into your help files so that a WhizNotes generated help can be recognized for detecting unlicensed usage of WhizNotes.

Also see

Advantages of Help Generation

Terminology of help generation

Details of WhizNotes help generation statements


Basics of WhizNotes printing facilities

WhizNotes gives you the following features for printing your topics:

Printing from an open topic window

This is the feature that you will use most often when printing a single topic, say a letter. No special headers or footers will be printed except for the page numbers. This is exactly what you usually want when printing a single topic.

Printing from a WhizNote window

You will realize the convenience of WhizNotes grouping and printing when you print from a WhizNote window.

Printing one or more selected topics

In this case, WhizNotes introduces special headers and footers while printing that makes it easy to look for a particular topic in the printout. If you select and print multiple topics then WhizNotes will also produce a table of contents at the end.

Printing all the topics

You can also print all the topics contained in a WhizNote file. This is similar to printing multiple topics, but applies to all the topics.


Browsing sequences of topics

What is a browsing sequence? If you look at the ribbon bar of this help window, you will notice two buttons '>>' and '<<'. Try to go in either backward or forward direction using these buttons. You will see that they guide you through a series of related topics and the button is grayed out when you reach the end of the group. Of course, as a help author, it is I who decided what topics are related to each other and then placed them in separate groups in a sequence. How did I do that? I used WhizNotes' ListBrowseGroup commands to specify these groups.

WhizNotes makes it incredibly simple to assign browse groups. All you have to do is to make a special topic named "~HelpAttributes" and define the browse groups using the statement syntax given below. Note that if one topic is not enough then you can make more such topics with names beginning with "~HelpAttributes".

Syntax for defining browse groups in WhizNotes

ListBrowseGroup { "topic-name1", "topic-name2", ...}

You can define as many browse groups as you want; but remember, that in Windows help, a topic can not be present in more than one browse groups.

To avoid typing all the topic names, WhizNotes allows you to drag multiple topics and drop on your "~HelpAttributes" topic window. All you have to do is to enter beginning and end of the statement. After dropping the names you may have to rearrange them if you want a different sequence. You can also do an undo if you change your mind just after a drop.

Special topic "~HelpAttributes" also allows you to define other attributes for topics and global help generation. For more details, see Keywords, macros, and other characteristics of topics


Conditional help generation

This is one of the most useful features of WhizNotes. Do not confuse it with the Build Tags as specified in the Help Compiler documentation. Rather, the WhizNotes conditional help generation is even more powerful than the one provided with Build Tags for the compiler. Here is a discussion on when to use it.

Sometimes you may want to use the same WhizNote for generating various levels of help. For example, for a demonstration program you may need a little different text as compared to the registered version. Provided that most of the text is similar, how can you control which text in a topic is to be used and which topics are to be skipped? WhizNotes conditional help generation can do it for you. But you must understand that if you make logical errors in specifying condition statements then WhizNotes can not always catch your mistakes. So you are responsible for making sure that the statements for conditional help generation are logically correct.

There are three aspects of conditional compilation:

1.	Specifying one or more TAGs (identifiers) in WhizNotes Help Generation Dialog to specify what all combinations you want.

Examples of tags are "Demo", "Registered", etc. When entering more than one tag in the dialog, please use semicolons to separate them.

2.	Preparing topic text with these statements to control what text gets included and what text gets excluded when a tag is present or not present. These are [~IFTAG..], [~IFNOTTAG..], [~ELSE], and [~ENDIF]. C programmers should understand that this is similar to C directives #ifdef, #ifndef, etc. with one exception: WhizNotes also allows them to be embedded anywhere in the paragraph text.

3.	If whole topics are to be skipped depending on whether a tag is defined or not defined then you may use similar named keywords when defining help attributes for topics. For details, please see Keywords, macros, and other characteristics of topics.

Examples

I will give you two examples of using conditional tags:

1.	Suppose you want a line in your topic to read "This production version gives you the following additional facilities:" in the help for production version; and "This demo version restricts use of these features:" in the demo version of your program's help.

Here is how you would do this:

•	Decide to use a tag "PRODUCTION".

•	Prepare your text like this:

[~IFTAG PRODUCTION]

This production version gives you the following additional facilities:

[~ELSE]

This demo version restricts use of these features:

[~ENDIF]

•	Now if you define the tag PRODUCTION in WhizNotes Help Generation Dialog and then generate help, you will get the first line; whereas, if you remove the tag from the dialog and generate help then you will get the second line. The use of ELSE  part is optional. You could have used an [~ENDIF] there if you did not want any line to appear for the demo version. Similarly there is an IFNOTTAG statement that may be useful sometimes.

2.	You just want to change the word "production" to "demo" in the above example of the first line.

To do that use the statements in this manner:

This demo version gives you the following additional facilities:

As I said earlier, this is a powerful feature that may save you lot of rework to maintain different help files for different versions. For more examples, please look at the sample WhizNote files.

Also see

Keywords, macros, and other characteristics of topics


Contents

Dedication

Introduction

Introduction

The philosophy of WhizNotes

Quick start tutorial

What is new in this version

Please register to support the author

What you get when you Register

How to Register

Manipulating WhizNote files

What is a topic?

What is a WhizNote file?

Creating a new WhizNote file

Opening an existing WhizNote file

Opening from File Manager

Saving a WhizNote file

Desktop options for a WhizNote

Save WhizNote as.. menu option

Edit menu copy operations for a WhizNote window

Obtaining word count

Manipulating topics within a WhizNote file

Creating a new topic

Opening a topic for editing

Renaming a topic

Deleting a topic

Ordering your topics in the topic list

Searching for a topic

Search/replace operations

Inserting a jump to another topic

Operations on multiple topics

Inserting date/time in your text

Making use of Windowing features of WhizNotes

Opening multiple WhizNote and topic windows

Manipulating external text files

Saving topic to an external text file

Copying topics from one WhizNote to another

Options menu

Printing WhizNote files and topics

Basics of WhizNotes printing facilities

Printing from a topic window

Printing one or more selected topics

Using Quick draft printing for convenience

General utility features

Inserting date/time in your text

Toolbar/Statusbar

Export/import features of WhizNotes

Exporting Selected Topics to a Text File

Importing Topics from a text file

Importing whole text files as topics

Generating Windows Help

Basics of Help generation

Terminology of help generation

Advantages of Help Generation

Details of WhizNotes help generation statements

How to create recorder macros for help statements

How to insert bitmaps into your help files

Sample WZN file to demonstrate Help Generation

What you should know about temporary files created by WhizNotes

Temporary files created by WhizNotes

Appendix

Limits setup in WhizNotes

Tips for the Power User

Trademarks


Copying topics from one WhizNote to another

If you have one or more WhizNote windows open, and you want to copy a topic from one WhizNote to another, do the following:

•	Bring both windows into view. For better visibility, you can minimize the unneeded windows and use menu Window-Tile for better view of the desired windows.

•	Select a topic in one window by clicking on it. Then, while keeping the left mouse button pressed, drag the mouse cursor onto the other WhizNote window and release it.

You will see that the topic gets copied to the other WhizNote file.

Dragging multiple topics

You can also use Windows standard key combinations with the mouse-click to select multiple topics and drag them onto the other WhizNote. For details on how to select multiple topics, please see Operations on multiple topics.

This dragging feature is indeed very convenient

For instance, you can make one of your WhizNote files as a sort of wastebasket or archive. You can drag and drop old topics on to this basket and then delete them from the original WhizNote.


Creating a new topic

Creating a new topic is simple:

•	If a WhizNote window is active, just press Insert or select menu File-New topic....

•	If a topic window is active, just press Insert or select menu File-Add another topic....

A dialog box appears that allows you to choose a name for your topic. Please note that embedded blanks and special characters are allowed in topic names. So you can even choose a phrase for your topic name.

Once you select a topic name for your new topic, an editor window opens up that allows you to enter text into your topic.

You can also directly paste the clipboard contents as a new topic by selecting  Edit-Paste new topic contents.


Creating a new WhizNote file

To create a new WhizNote file, select File-New WhizNote. You will see that an untitled gray window appears that contains an empty list of topics. This is called a WhizNote file.

You can add one or more topics to this WhizNote file.

Please note that WhizNotes allows you to keep multiple WhizNote file windows open at the same time. You can even copy topics by dragging them from one WhizNote file to another.

Also see

Creating a new topic

Saving a WhizNote file

Save WhizNote as.. menu option


Dedication

This version of WhizNotes is dedicated to those sincere users who registered the earlier version and sustained my enthusiasm in developing it further.

I am also grateful to those who reviewed the program to let other users know about it, uploaded it to other bulletin boards, or sent encouraging remarks to me, often accompanied by valuable suggestions.

I hope you will love using this program as much as I loved developing it.

Sanjay Kanade


Deleting a topic

To delete a topic just select the topic in the WhizNote window, and select menu File-Delete Topic or press the key DEL.

You can select multiple topics in the list of topics and delete them. For details on how to select multiple topics, please see Operations on multiple topics.

Delete operation is also available from an open topic window. But the keyboard shortcut is Alt-Del combination, instead of only Del.


Desktop options for a WhizNote

Here are the options that you can specify to change certain behavior of a WhizNote window. This dialog comes up when you select the menu item Options-Options for this WhizNote....

Title for WhizNote window

If you enter a title here then the filename in the title will be replaced by the title that you chose. This may be more convenient to identify the contents of your WhizNote file.

Characteristics of topic windows

Rest of the options relate to how the topic windows operate. For example, you can specify the tabsize and font for the topic editor for this WhizNote. The tabsize and font applies to all the topics of that WhizNote.

Choices for viewing topics

•	Normally, when you open a WhizNote file and its topic windows, they are opened in a predetermined cascaded position. This is convenient in most of the cases.

•	Sometimes, you may want to resize or move a topic and have WhizNotes remember its position. For that, you should select Open topics at their last customized position size. If you select this option then the position of WhizNote window along with any resized or moved topics will be remembered.

How can you recognize which topics have remembered this customized information? A double-headed arrow will appear to the left of a topic name in the list of topics. You can always "Reset any of these topics to their default sizes" by selecting them and selecting the menu item Options-Reset selected topics to default sizes.

•	If you select the option Open topics on top of previous topics then a new topic will always cover an existing open topic of that WhizNote. This may be useful when you don't want to cover the list of topics by an open topic window.

Opening last topic automatically

If you chose this option then whenever a WhizNote is opened, the last used topic is opened automatically. This is useful to find out where you left off last time.

Where are all the options kept?

For your information, the desktop options for a WhizNote are kept in a file with extension DSK. Whenever you do a save, the options are also saved in the WZN file.

 Please note that DSK files are for your environment only, and you can always delete them without losing any data; however, you may never want to delete them as they keep your latest options for a WZN file. Also, when delivering a WZN file to someone else, you need not give its DSK file along with it. For giving the WZN file with the latest options, you may want to force the saving of options in a WZN file. Read the following discussion to understand some subtle points related to this.

If you look at the description of Saving a WhizNote file, you will notice that when you save a WhizNote then save is not performed if there have been no changes in the topic contents, names or their order. The options are not considered a 'change' as it will be very irritating if you were asked for a save so often-as often as the options change.

Sometimes, you may want the options to be unconditionally saved in the WhizNote file; for example, you want to send it to someone and want him to look at it exactly in the same font that you are using. Since font is an option, how can you force the saving of options in the WhizNote file? For this, another menu option is provided: Options-Prepare distributable WZN with latest options. Use this to force saving of options whenever you have to deliver a WZN file to someone.


Details of WhizNotes help generation statements

There are several types of WhizNotes help generation statements and attributes that you can specify in the text of your topics. The following discussion covers all the details of these statements and attributes.  If you are  serious about help generation, you must read-and understand-all of the discussion in the following topics. I have seen many users missing on the features by not reading the help in detail. You may also want to look at the sample WZN file that demonstrates the use of these statements.

It may be convenient for you to know that all the help statements and attributes used by WhizNotes are case-insensitive; for example, you can use "JUMP", "Jump", or, "jump" when specifying jumps.

WhizNotes Help statements

You have already seen statements like [~JUMP ..] and [~REF...] that can be inserted into your topic test by dragging topic names on to a topic; if not, please look at Inserting a jump to another topic.

Such statements beginning with [~ are called WhizNotes help statements. Here are more of them which you can use in the text of your topics:

Making your text bold or italic

Making bulleted and numeric lists

Indenting text

Specifying jumps & references to other help files

Inserting direct RTF code

Inserting help macros

Conditional help generation

Special note:

If you want ']' character to be part of your text then prepend it with a backslash. This applies to all WhizNotes statements.

WhizNotes Help attributes

WhizNotes allows you to specify certain aspects of help generation by defining attributes in a special topic having the name of "~HelpAttribute". If one topic is not enough then you can define more of these topics provided their names begin with the characters "~HelpAttributes".

You can define the following attributes in such topics:

Browsing sequences of topics

Keywords, macros, and other characteristics of topics

Also see

A note on quoted values

Afterthought

You may wonder why I did not give this facility in the form of GUI elements like the dialog boxes? There are several reasons, and I am sure you will agree with me when you understand the guiding principle here:

1.	I believe in the use of several tools. You may already be using your own editor which may be more powerful than the simple topic editor provided with WhizNotes. I don't want to restrict you when preparing your text. You can create your text using other editors and can import it in WhizNotes for final assembly.

2.	I am sure you will find ways to automate the generation of these attributes using your own clever little programs. For instance, you may use a database to keep track of the keywords that are used by several topics and generate these attribute statements using the database.

3.	WhizNotes desktop is generic and there are users who are not interested in help generation at all. If most of the specification is in the form of topic text, the desktop remains generic and can be extended to provide other facilities in future.


draft copy

A printout that is solely produced for checking the text content of a document. It is faster because it is usually produced by sending a stream of characters to your printer. There is no font selection involved.


Edit menu copy operations for a WhizNote window

You can copy the contents or names of selected topics to the clipboard using the edit menu selections: Edit-Copy topic contents or Edit-Copy selected names.


Examples of WhizNote files

A WhizNote file is a collection of many topics. You create such files with the help of WhizNotes; they have the extension ".WZN".

It is up to you to group any topics you want into one WZN or WhizNote file. This way you don't have to remember each of your topic names. All you need to remember is the WhizNote file name that serves as a sort of folder name.

A topic within a WhizNote file can be any independent text note that you want to recognize by name. Please also note that topic names appear in sorted order in the list of topics so that you can easily organize them by choosing proper names.

Example

A WhizNote file "WEEKREPS.WZN" may contain various weekly reports as individual topics, having the following names:

•	01/02/93 - Weekly report (sent on 01/05)

•	01/09/93 - Weekly report

•	...

As you can see, the ability to choose any topic name and to group them makes WhizNotes extremely useful. You need not care about how the topics are kept or which directory they belong to. All you need to remember is the name of that particular WhizNote file that contains them: "WEEKREPS.WZN" in this case.

More examples:

•	A WhizNote file "LETTERS.WZN" keeps your letters as individual topics, with names like Martin - letter sent on Dec 14".

•	A WhizNote file "UTILSLIB.WZN" is used by a programmer to keep notes on various C utility functions or C++ classes that he is developing or plans to develop. Again the flexible naming scheme allows topic names like:

int   getDelimitedText(char *textBuffer)

•	A writer uses a WhizNote file "PHRASES.WZN" to quickly note any phrases or ideas he might find useful in a writing project; he may use topic names like Possible beginning para.

•	Two consultants, on a project, share ideas by passing a WhizNote file called "prodidea.wzn" and thus exchange information on related topics.

•	...

Isn't it wonderful to be able to identify all your information by such convenient topic names and, to group them together in WhizNote files?

It may be interesting for you to know that-as the WhizNotes author-I myself have been keeping track of enhancement ideas and bug reports using WhizNote files. This way I never lose any single piece of information that I want to remember. Also, I created this WhizNotes help exclusively by using WhizNotes along with the Windows help compiler. WhizNotes allows you to convert any WhizNote file into Windows hypertext help, provided you have the Windows help compiler. To find out more, please see Basics of Help generation.


Exporting Selected Topics to a Text File

At a certain point, after preparing your document in WhizNotes, you may want to export the text to a single text file. For instance, you may want to use a WYSIWYG word processor to put in the features for enhanced appearance.

To do that, please select menu Tools-Export Selected Topics To Text File.... A dialog box appears that allows you to specify the following options:

•	Enter delimiter line

You can enter a delimiting line that you want to precede the start of each topic in the output text file. For example, if you enter /* TOPIC */ as the delimiter line then WhizNotes will put such a line in the output text file whenever it starts writing a new topic. Of course, if you want, you may not choose to put any delimiter by leaving the line empty in the dialog box.

Delimiter is especially useful, if later you want to import the same file back into a WhizNote. Please also note that this is the only option which you should use on this dialog box if you foresee reimporting this text back into a WhizNote file. If you use any of the following options then topics may not be imported exactly as they looked before exporting.

•	Break paragraphs into lines at a specified column

You can break paragraphs into lines at a specified column. This is very useful to prepare properly formatted files for MS-DOS viewing. For example, I often use this feature to prepare a README.1ST file from my topics.

•	Do not export topic name

You may choose NOT to export topic names before the text. You may want to do this if you simply want to merge text from selected topics into one big text file. For example,  you may have earlier imported a whole, big text file that was split into multiple topics, and now you want to export the pieces to recreate the whole file.

•	Emit an underlining line of dashes

Emit a blank line before and after the topic name

These are additional features to nicely format the exported file for viewing with external programs like MS-DOS.

Also see

Importing Topics from a text file


Features of WhizNotes

WhizNotes helps you take maximum advantage of the random creative thought processes that occur when you are preparing a document or when you are studying a new subject.

Let us look at the features of WhizNotes at a glance.

Choose any name for your topic

Flexibility in choosing topic names is one of the most convenient features of WhizNotes. After using this facility of descriptive and clear names, you will never go back to keeping your text in cryptic filenames on the disk.

With WhizNotes, you can make topics having very long names, up to 255 characters long. Also, there is no restriction on the set of characters that you can use in the topic names.

This flexibility in choosing names can be put to hundreds of different uses. For example, if you are a programmer you may as well make function prototypes as your topic names to facilitate direct access to the documentation for your function library.

Easily group related topics together

WhizNotes also provides a convenient grouping facility. You can combine related topics into a single file. Such files are called WhizNote files. One WhizNote file may contain many topics and you can have different WhizNote files for different subjects.

Easily locate a topic

The WhizNote file window lists topics in a sorted order. This makes it easier to locate a topic. You can choose to view the list of topics sorted by topic names, or, you can rearrange the topics in any desired sequence.

Search functions are also available to quickly locate topics.

Drag and drop topics from one WhizNote to another

You can have multiple WhizNote files open at the same time and you can copy topics from one WhizNote file to another by just dragging and dropping the topic names.

Use flexible Multiple Document Interface

WhizNotes provides the standard Multiple Document Interface similar to many applications. Hence, you can learn it quickly and start using it immediately.

Help Generation

If you have a Windows help compiler, you can convert your WhizNote files into Windows hypertext help. Creating jumps from one topic to another is as easy as a simple drag and drop. In fact, this WhizNotes help has been created by exclusively using WhizNotes along with the Windows help compiler. No other word processor was required! If you have ever tried to create Help files before, you already know how time consuming it is. WhizNotes makes Help creation incredibly simple.

Although there are other help authoring tools available, there is a big difference. They provide little help in the most difficult task of help authoring: research and topic organization. Most of them require the use of a separate RTF editor like Microsoft Word; again, word processors are not text management tools, but text presentation tools.

With WhizNotes it is different. WhizNotes primarily addresses text organization and topic management. It will save your valuable time when you start your help authoring project for researching and establishing your topics. Help generation is a side-feature of WhizNotes, and it does not require the use of any other RTF editor! Of course, you can use one in addition to WhizNotes to improve upon your work by using WhizNotes export capabilities. WhizNotes does not restrict you in any way.


Features that users overlooked earlier

Here is a list of features that some of you may have overlooked in version 1.2:

•	Inserting jump statements and double-clicking on them to move from topic to topic.

•	Copying topics from one WhizNote to another by a drag and drop.

•	Specifying a customized "Contents" topic for help generation.

•	Sample help file which demonstrates most of the features of help formatting.

You are advised not to miss any more features by looking at the help once in a while. The online help has many improvements now; for example, you can search for the keyword "Drag & Drop" to look for the related topics.


General desktop options

This dialog comes up when you select the menu item Options-General desktop options....

This dialog allows you to specify the Tabsize and font for the editor windows used to view external text files. Since the text files themselves have no space to remember the font and tabsize, this is the place where you can specify it and WhizNotes will remember it till you change them.

Another option allows you to automatically open the last used topic when the WhizNote file is opened.


How to create recorder macros for help statements

Have you ever looked at a tool Recorder in your Windows accessories? This amazing tool can help you to enter often used text quickly by using the keyboard shortcuts. A WhizNote recorder file has been provided for you as a sample. The file name is WHIZNOTE.REC and it is located in the WhizNotes program directory.

Here are the steps to use it to simplify your text entry:

•	Start the recorder program and open the file WHIZNOTE.REC from the file menu.

•	You will see that it contains predefined macros for entering WhizNotes commands: [~bold..], [~italic] and others which you can recognize. Once you open this file, the macros are ready for use in WhizNotes.

•	For example, select a paragraph which you want to bracked by a bold statement and then press Ctrl-B which is short-cut for running the macro BOLD.

Here are short-cut keys for macros predefined for you in this file.

•	Ctrl-B	Bold

•	Ctrl-I	Italic

•	Ctrl-l	Start bulleted list

•	Ctrl-n	Start numeric list

•	Ctrl-m	Item

•	Ctrl-e	End list

Note: Remember that these macros can only be used in WhizNotes. If you switch to another application, be sure to disable the Option-Shortcut keys in the recorder, otherwise you may see strange results. Also, you can change the shortcut keys for these macros in recorder.

How to define your own macros

Here is a brief description of steps to define a macro like BOLD. For details, please look at the description of Recorder in Windows manual.

1.	Start recorder program.

2.	Place caret anywhere on a WhizNote topic. This is just to indicate that the macro is for use with WhizNotes.

3.	Now go to the recorder and select menu Macro-Record. A dialog box will come up that will allow you to define the shortcut key and a name for the macro. As soon as you press start, you should see the recorder minimized and the caret on the topic window. The icon for recorder will be blinking to indicate that the recording has started.

4.	Now press the keys in the following order:

1.	Shift-Delete	This means the macro will first CUT the selected text when run.

2.	[~bold	These characters will be typed.

3.	Space	This is to separate bold statement from the following text.

4.	Shift-Insert	We are pasting back the text that we cut.

5.	]	This is the closing bracket.

6.	Ctrl-Break	This will stop the macro recording. Now you can save the macro.

Now you can test the macro to see that it works. This way you can enter more macros in the file WhizNote.rec. You can make more such files for other applications as you need but remember that at one time only one recorder file can be used. Remember that you have to first start the recorder with the proper file before using it in an application. It is better to place an icon for Recorder with your favorite recorder file in the Startup group of the program manager so that it is always available for you when needed. You can enable and disable its macros by using the menu Option-Shortcut keys.

Caution For your macros, choose a shortcut key that is not defined as an accelerator on the WhizNotes menu, otherwise the accelerator may stop working.


How to insert bitmaps into your help files

You can insert bitmaps (pictures) into your text with the following bitmap statements always inserted between a pair of braces:

•	bml bitmapfilename

To left justify the bitmap. Any following text will wrap around this bitmap on the right side.

•	bmr bitmapfilename

To right justify the bitmap. Any following text will wrap around this bitmap on the left side.

•	bmc bitmapfilename

To insert at the current position in a text line.

I can not actually show the enclosing braces here, because help compiler will try to interpret these statements as bitmap statements. So when you use these statements, please use real braces around them.

Bitmaps with hotspots

There is another amazing tool in your Windows SDK called HotSpot editor (Shed.EXE). Hotspot Editor allows you to edit your bitmaps to include hotspots in them. When a user clicks on a hotspot, he can jump to a hypertext topic related to that hotspot.

For example, click on this bitmap [image] to get a message.

For details, look at the help documentation for SHED.EXE.

Please note that when defining hotspots for your bitmaps, you will need context ids that WhizNotes assigns to the required topics. For obtaining the context ids, simply select the option to generate the C header file when creating help. In the generated .INC file, you will find the context ids for each topic as the identifier following the #define statement. Please note that WhizNotes generates meaningful context ids so that they do not change with the changing help contents; moreover, you can override these context ids if you don't like the ones generated by WhizNotes.


How to Register

You can obtain a registered version of WhizNotes for only $49.95 + $4.50 for Shipping and Handling (for USA & CANADA).  Shipping and Handling is $9.00 outside USA.

If you are not satisfied with WhizNotes registered Version for any reason,  you can return it within 30 days for a full refund.

TO REGISTER BY PHONE

Please call Advanced Support Group, Inc. at:

1-800-788-0787 (ORDER ONLY)

  	or,

(314) 965-5630

You can make your payments with Mastercard, Visa, American Express, purchase orders, or, at ASG's option, C.O.D.

TO REGISTER BY MAIL, FAX, or, COMPUSERVE

Please use the order form in the file order.doc. You can also print the order form by pressing the button 'Print order form...' on the registration reminder screen (also available in menu Help - Registration reminder...).

Please send the order form to:

Advanced Support Group, Inc.

11900  Grant Place

DES PERES, MO  63131-4512

FAX:  (314) 966-1833

Compuserve ID: 70304, 3642

Send questions/suggestions to the author

The best way to contact the author is to send an electronic mail message at the following e-mail address on Compuserve:

Sanjay Kanade 71303,20

You may also write to the author at the Advanced Support Group, Inc.'s address as mentioned above.

Also see

What you get when you Register


Importing Topics from a text file

The import files dialog appears when you select menu Tools-Import Topics from a file. Import itself is a fairly advanced operation. You have to know what you are doing. Hence, the following discussion attempts to give you lots of details on finer points of importing. For a first reading, you may skip the details as necessary.

A delimiter line

First of all please look at What is a delimiter to understand the meaning of a delimiter line. When importing topics from a text file you must enter a delimiter line so that WhizNotes can separate out the topics. Once you enter a proper delimiter line from your text file, the import feature will import topics into the WhizNote window.

Please note that if a WhizNote has already been exported to a text file with delimiters then it is ready for import automatically. Try it out. See the topic Exporting Selected Topics to a Text File for details on how to export.

If you are taking an external text file and want to break it into topics then, and only then, you need to do some extra work to insert your delimiter and topic names at the proper places in the file. Please also see Knowing a little programming helps when importing.

Join lines to form paragraphs

This is an extremely useful feature when importing text prepared by non-word-wrap editors which introduce a hard carriage-return character at the end of each line of a paragraph. If you were to rejoin these lines manually, it is a tedious process, as you must have realized by now when using previous version of WhizNotes. Although it is difficult to find out which lines can be joined, WhizNotes uses a special technique to recognize the lines belonging to a paragraph. Of course, it may not always work, especially, if the left margins are present in the text file in the form of spaces. That is why , after performing any import, you should look at the text to correct any undesired joining of lines.

Those of you who are used to preparing a lists of items with a dash in the first column will be delighted to know that WhizNotes does not join items of such a list.

Append topics with duplicate names

What happens when a topic name to be imported already exists in the WhizNote file? Well, you have two choices: the default behavior is that WhizNotes will make up a new topic name by appending a sequence number for the new topic. However, if you check this box, WhizNotes will try to append the new topic's text to the already existing topic. If it runs out of space for a topic then it will create another similar topic name and continue. This is very useful for making topics out of e-mail messages based on subject where a subject may repeat quite often.

Also see

Importing whole text files as topics

Exporting Selected Topics to a Text File

Tips for the Power User


Importing whole text files as topics

Most probably, you will be using this feature a lot, so please try to understand all the aspects of this extremely useful operation.

There are two ways to do it:

1.	Select menu item Tools-Importing whole text files as topics... A standard file open dialog will come up where you can select multiple files to be imported.

2.	Drag multiple files from the File Manager and drop them on a WhizNote window.

You will see that files will be imported and split into multiple topics if they are large. You can use this feature for several purposes. I use it often to take advantage of convenient WhizNotes printing. I can drop all my source files on a WhizNote window, rename them to more descriptive names and rearrange them by using unsorted listing of topics. Then I get a neat printout from WhizNotes with a table of contents at the end. You may find other uses for it as well.

Just to let you know, the large files are purposely split into multiple topics at less than maximum topic size, so that you can add more information to these topic-pieces. The sequencing of the pieces uses a special numbering convention, such that you can insert more pieces. Although you may not want to write these pieces back to form the original file, you can do so if you select them all and then export with options 'no delimiter line' and 'no export of the topic name'.

Also see

Importing Topics from a text file

Exporting Selected Topics to a Text File


Indenting text

Sometimes you would like to indent text just by itself without using lists.

For doing that use the following statement on a separate line by itself:

•	[~INDENT+]	To indent one step to the right.

Any paragraphs that you type after this will remain indented. You can repeat this statement to move further by one step at a time.

•	[~INDENT-]	To move back the indentation one step to the left.

•	[~INDENT0]	To remove all indentation.

Use this statement when you want to make the text appear as it was originally, without indentation. Note that a zero has been used instead of + or -.


Insert Jump Dialog Box

When you drag one or more topics from a WhizNote window onto one of the open topic windows then this dialog box appears. If you choose a Jump option then a jump to the dragged topic is inserted in the open topic at the caret position. On the other hand, if you choose a reference, a reference jump is inserted.

What is a Jump?

In WhizNotes, a jump is a hypertext jump statement that allows you to double-click on the jump and go to the topic window indicated. This is a very convenient feature of WhizNotes.

A WhizNotes jump statement looks like this: [~JUMP  topicname].

Also, when you generate a Windows help file from WhizNotes, this jump is translated into a Windows Help jump. Try and see how it works. Then you will understand it better.

What is a Reference?

This is mainly for Windows Help generation. A reference is converted into a popup link to the indicated topic.

A WhizNotes reference statement looks like this: [~REF  topicname].

As far as WhizNotes is concerned, it provides a jump even if you double-click on a reference. This is very convenient when developing a help document with WhizNotes.

Printing and above statements

For your convenience, during printing WhizNotes converts both the above statements to double-quoted topic names.


Inserting a jump to another topic

When you drag a topic from a WhizNote window onto one of the open topic windows then a dialog box appears that allows you to insert a WhizNotes Jump. Using this jump, you can literally jump to the indicated topic by double-clicking on it. Also, when you generate a Windows help file from WhizNotes, this jump is translated into a Windows Help jump. Try and see how it works. Then you will understand it better.

You can also drag and drop multiple topics, for instance, when creating a "Contents" topic for help generation. Each jump statement is inserted on a new line, preserving the indentation if any. You can also do an undo if you change your mind just after such a drop.

For your information, when you print topics containing jump statements, the jumps are converted into double-quoted topic names so that your printout does not look strange.

For details, see Insert Jump Dialog Box.


Inserting date/time in your text

You can insert the date or date/time in your text by selecting the menu items Edit-Insert date... You also have an option of choosing whether date in a long or short format is inserted into your text. If you don't understand what a long or short date format is, please look at the 'International' settings in the Windows Control Panel. WhizNotes picks up the format of the date and time from your current selections in the 'International' section of the control panel.


Inserting direct RTF code

If you know Rich Text Format specification well, you can insert direct RTF code in your topic text by using the following statement:

[~RTF your-rtf-code]


Inserting help macros

Have you ever looked at the topic "Help macros" in your SDK help? This is a powerful feature of Windows Help that lets you customize your help more like an application. WhizNotes allows you to easily insert help macros in your text by using the statement:

[~HELPMACRO {visibleText = "visible-text", macro = "macro-statements"}]

Explanation of parameters

•	visibleText - text to appear underlined

•	macro - macro statements

When the user clicks on such a visible text in the generated Windows help, the help macro will be executed.

You can also specify a help macro to be executed whenever a topic is displayed. For details see Keywords, macros, and other characteristics of topics.

Please note that since WhizNotes uses double-quotes to enclose the parameter values, it is easier for you to use single-quote pairs in macros. Single quote pairs are on two different keys on your keyboard and their order is important. If you want to use double-quotes in macros then you will have to repeat them for WhizNotes to evaluate them properly.


Introduction

•	Do you often feel overwhelmed with the bulk of information that you have to deal with?

•	Do you constantly come up with new ideas, but have trouble recalling them later?

•	Do you find it difficult to reorganize your thoughts when you decide to write up the first draft of a document?

•	Do you wish that you could create your very own electronic reference notes on your favorite subjects; that too in the Windows hypertext help format?

Well, don't blame yourself for any of these situations as they are indeed the manifestations of your creative mind. Do not lose those precious thoughts away! Give your imaginative mind the proper writing tool that it deserves. Give it WhizNotes and see your productivity soar as never before!

Welcome to the world of WhizNotes

WhizNotes is a Windows program that can be used on Windows version 3.1 or later. Once you start using WhizNotes, you might wonder how you ever managed without this versatile tool. After knowing more about WhizNotes, you will find that it does not fit into any single category of programs that you have known so far. It may look like a PIM (Personal Information Manager) at first glance. But, it is also a research tool, Windows Help generation tool, an organizer, a study aid, a thinking aid, and so on. It's variety of uses are only limited by your imagination.

Let us take an example of a document preparation process that is starting from scratch. We all know how painful it can be to prepare that first draft of a document. You may have all the ideas on how to go about writing that document but all your thoughts seem tangled to begin with. WhizNotes helps you overcome this inertia effectively and easily. How? It lets you classify your information into separate topics instantly. WhizNotes provides powerful topic management facilities. Therefore you can concentrate on the subject matter of the document without worrying about its structure.

WhizNotes' information management facility is also a great help in making notes of any kind, whether you are a student, a writer, a programmer,...

Also a Help generation tool

To top it all, WhizNotes allows you to turn your notes into Windows hypertext help, provided you have the Windows help compiler.

The philosophy of WhizNotes

Want to know more about the concepts behind WhizNotes? Why not take a look at The philosophy of WhizNotes.

To mention a few of the more important features, WhizNotes gives you an ability to:

•	Put any type of text in one or more topics.

•	Choose any descriptive topic name, even with embedded blanks and special characters.

•	Group all these topics together in a WhizNote file that serves as a sort of folder for these topics.

This way, you can create as many groups as you want by simply using different WhizNote files. To get a better idea of the grouping flexibility provided by WhizNotes, please take a look at the Examples of WhizNote files.

•	Print a neat listing of one or more topics including a table of contents. An option of quick draft printing is also supported.

•	With just a click on the menu, generate Windows hypertext help, provided you have the Microsoft help compiler.

Features of WhizNotes

For more details, please look at the Features of WhizNotes.


Keywords, macros, and other characteristics of topics

WhizNotes allows you to specify keywords, macros, and other attributes of topics for generating advanced help. All you have to do is to create a special topic named "~HelpAttributes" and define a helptopic statement for each topic using the statement syntax given below. Note that if one topic is not enough then you can make more such topics with names beginning with "~HelpAttributes".

Syntax for specifying topic specific attributes

HelpTopic "topic-name"

      {

Keywords = "",

      	TopicNameIsNotAKeyword = "NO",

Macros = "",

UseNonScrollingTitle = "NO",

VisibleJumpText = "",

SkipIfTag = "",

SkipIfNotTag = "",

ContextString = ""

      }

Most of the attributes are self-explanatory. Here is a brief description for all of them:

•	Keywords

Keywords are words or phrases that you see in the "Search" window of the generated help. By using keywords, a user can get a list of topics related to that keyword. In WhizNotes, by default topic name itself is a keyword for a topic. If you want, you can add more keywords by assigning them to this attribute. Make sure that if you are defining more than one keywords for a topic, you must separate them with a semicolon.

•	TopicNameIsNotAKeyword

As already seen, WhizNotes generates a keyword same as the topic name, that is it uses the default value "NO" shown here. Make it "YES" if you do not desire this for a topic.

•	Macros

Note that this feature does not work in the Shareware version as it conflicts with Shareware version's own message "Unregistered copy" that requires use of a help macro.

•	UseNonScrollingTitle

This is a very attractive feature of Windows help. For those topics, that you do not plan to use as popup or referenced topics, you can define "yes" for this attribute. The result will be an attractive non-scrollable heading in the generated help. Try and see how it looks. You can even control the background color for the non-scrolling region by specifying it in the HPJ file. See your SDK documentation for details. You will also find comments in the WhizNotes generated HPJ file to guide you to these colors definitions.

•	VisibleJumpText

Don't you wish sometimes that for some jumps you want to present a different visible text to the user than the original topic name? You can do it in two ways. For occasional use, you may use JUMPTOCONTEXT statement described elsewhere in this help. But, for a particular topic, if you always want to use a different visible text then use this attribute.

•	SkipIfTag and SkipIfNotTag

For understanding this you have to first read Conditional help generation. These attributes allow you to completely skip a topic depending on the presence or  absence of a tag.

•	ContextString (advanced usage)

WhizNotes generates context strings based on topic names automatically. So if you are using them to provide context sensitive help for your application, you need not worry about changing your program when you add or rearrange your topics. But if you want, you can still override the default context string by defining a value for this attribute.

For actual examples of some of these attributes, please take a look at the sample WZN file provided with WhizNotes.

Also see

A note on quoted values


Knowing a little programming helps when importing

When splitting external files into topics for importing, knowing a little programming will help you a lot.

For example, suppose you have a collection of e-mail messages where you want to make the subject a topic name. But the subject actually appears on the third line , whereas you want the topic itself to include the first line which contains FROM part of your e-mail message. If you know  basic programming then you can write a program that takes the third line and prepends it with a delimiter before the mail message. Once you do that, your mail messages can be imported as separate topics.


Limits setup in WhizNotes

At present WhizNotes has the following limits:

•	Please note that WhizNotes is a single user program. Two users can not use the same WZN file on a network at the same time. If they do, then their changes may be lost. WhizNotes opens WZN files in exclusive access mode so that two users are prevented from accessing the same file simultaneously. However, this won't be effective unless you install SHARE.EXE.

•	A topic can contain up to about 30,000 characters of text. However, since WhizNotes encourages you to divide your document into topics of manageable size, this is not really a limit. In fact, you can have very large WhizNotes files made up of these topics.

•	The topic name can be up to 255 characters in length. However, there is no restriction on using special characters, even blanks, embedded in topic names. If you are generating help, it is better not to include a semicolon in the topic name. If you do, the only problem is that the help keyword for the topic name will not be generated correctly.

•	WhizNotes allows you to keep maximum 25 windows open at the same time.

•	The maximum number of topics allowed in a WhizNote window are about 32000. But actually you will avoid reaching this limit as the saving of a WhizNote becomes slower and slower as it gets larger.


Making bulleted and numeric lists

To make up the bulleted lists in the generated help, you use the following statements, each on a separate line by itself:

•	[~STARTLIST]	To start the list. Use it on a separate line by itself.

•	[~ITEM]	On the preceding line before each item.

Use it on a separate line by itself. Item can be as long as you want even with multiple paragraphs. The indentation will be retained for the whole item.

•	[~ENDLIST]	To end the list. Use it on a separate line by itself.

For example, the above bulleted list was created by using the statements as described. You can even nest lists within lists! Although it is not WYSIWYG, you will like this way to prepare lists once you start using it. There are no irritating hidden control characters or indentation markers to deal with, and the text you type as items is free format text.

To specify a numeric list, simply use [~STARTLIST NUMERIC] instead of just [~STARTLIST].

For an example, see the sample WZN file.


Making your text bold or italic

Statement to specify bold text

[~BOLD  text]

When you use such a statement, the enclosed text appears as bold in the generated help. The text can even be a whole paragraph.

Statement to specify italic text

[~ITALIC  text]

When you use such a statement, the enclosed text appears as italic in the generated help. The text can even be a whole paragraph.


Manipulating external text files

Although, when working with WhizNotes you never need to worry about managing actual text files on your disk, all the standard features for viewing and editing external text files are provided, in case you need them.

The following points can be noted:

•	You can create a new text file by selecting menu item File-New Text File. Then you can save it by any name of your choice by selecting File-Save As...

•	You can open any text file by selecting File-View/Edit A Text File.... You will notice that the File menu remembers the last 8 WhizNote or Text files that you visited. You can just click on one of those file names to reopen them quickly.

•	Similarly, you can also save one of your topics to an external text file. See Saving topic to an external text file.

•	Currently, WhizNotes only allows you to view text files up to a certain file size. For latest information on these limits please see Limits setup in WhizNotes.

•	Word wrap and auto-indenting is also available when editing external text files. However, word wrap can not be remembered with a text file. Rather, you have to remember which file is to be viewed word wrapped. This is similar to Windows Notepad. That is why you should keep your notes in the form of topics in a WhizNote file so that word wrap and auto-indent features for the topics are automatically saved and handled by WhizNotes.


Message

Do you see how easy it is to include bitmaps into your help files!


Multiple Document Interface

WhizNotes uses the standard Multiple Document Interface (MDI) similar to many Windows applications. This similarity helps you to learn it quickly and easily.

For instance, if you have used Program Manager, File Manager, or MS Word then you are already familiar with MDI whether you are aware of it or not.

WhizNotes MDI allows you to:

•	Keep multiple topics as well as WhizNote windows open at the same time.

•	Use a menu located consistently at the top of the main window regardless of the current window being used (what menu options you see are all relevant and applicable to the window that is in focus or active).

•	Easily locate a window by the Window menu.

•	Minimize or maximize windows as a convenience in organizing your desktop space.

•	Tile or cascade windows.

•	Arrange icons for minimized windows.

•	In addition to the standard MDI features, WhizNotes implements some enhancements. For example, you can close all the topic windows without closing the WhizNote files. You can also minimize all the topics to unclutter your desktop

For more information, please look at the description of document windows in the beginning of your Windows manual. "Document window" is another term for MDI that is used frequently in Windows documentation.


Obtaining word count

You can obtain the word count on the selected topics by menu Edit-Give word count. The word count is also available from an editor window where it applies to the text present in that window.

The word count is shown in a message box. You can copy the contents of the message box to the clipboard by selecting the message text and pressing Ctrl-Insert keys. You can then paste this text in a file to keep track of how your word count progresses and how much writing you are able to accomplish.


Opening a topic for editing

To open a topic, you have to first select the topic in the WhizNote window. Then you have three choices available to open a topic for editing:

•	Double-click on the topic name.

•	Press RETURN key.

•	Select menu File-Open Topic....

If you look at the WhizNote window, you can recognize the open topics by a red pen that appears on the topic names. If you try to open an already open topic then the open topic window will automatically become active.

You can always close all the topics by selecting the menu Window-Close All Topics. Similarly, you can also minimize all the topics to unclutter your desktop.


Opening an existing WhizNote file

To open an existing WhizNote file, select File-Open WhizNote.... A standard file open dialog will be presented where you can select the desired WhizNote file to open.

Once you select a file and press OK, you will see that a gray WhizNote window appears that lists the topics contained in this file.

You can open, delete, and add topics to this WhizNote file.

Please note that WhizNotes allows you to keep multiple WhizNote file windows open at the same time. You can even drag topics from one WhizNote file to another.

Also see

What is a WhizNote file?

What is a topic?

Creating a new topic

Opening a topic for editing

Renaming a topic

Deleting a topic

Creating a new WhizNote file

Saving a WhizNote file

Save WhizNote as.. menu option


Opening from File Manager

WhizNotes automatically makes an association for WZN files in the File Manager for you. So, if you double-click on a WZN file then it will be opened for you by WhizNotes.

You can also associate extensions for other text files with WhizNotes. The above facility will then extend to the text files as well. However, currently WhizNotes can not open text files larger than 30,000 bytes.


Opening multiple WhizNote and topic windows

WhizNotes uses Windows Multiple Document Interface that gives you many features for managing your open windows, whether they are WhizNote file windows or topic windows.

You can go on clicking on topics to open them and you can go on opening other WhizNote files. The Window menu gives you many features by which you can move between the windows, can iconify, tile or cascade them, or even close all windows or only the topic windows. For details, see Multiple Document Interface.

You can also drag a topic from one WhizNote window to another by using the mouse. See Copying topics from one WhizNote to another


Operations on multiple topics

WhizNotes allows some operations on multiple topics. For example, you can delete a number of topics at once by selecting them all and choosing the delete operation.

How to select multiple topics

To select multiple topics use standard Windows guidelines. For instance, you can select multiple topics by pressing the control key along with mouse click. You can also select a range of topics by selecting the first topic in the range and then moving to the other end of the range and pressing the SHIFT key with the mouse click. For more details on how to select multiple topics in the list box, please refer to your Windows documentation.

WhizNotes currently allows the following operations on multiple selected topics:

•	Delete topics.

•	Print topics.

•	Copy topics to another WhizNote by dragging them.

•	Export selected topics to text file.

•	Copy selected names or contents to the clipboard.

•	Export selected topics as non-help Rich Text Format.


Options menu

The options menu allows you to control the following attributes:

•	Toolbar

You may choose to view or not to view the toolbar. You may rarely want to do that since toolbar is so useful.

•	Statusbar

You may choose to view or not to view the status bar. Currently, the only use for status bar in WhizNotes is to show what the menu equivalent of a toolbar button is. Once you get used to all the toolbar buttons, it is better to disable the status bar to get more desktop space.

•	General desktop options

See General desktop options.

•	All other menu items are meaningful only when you are working on a WhizNote file or a topic. For details, please see Desktop options for a WhizNote.

Also see

Desktop options for a WhizNote


Ordering your topics in the topic list

This feature allows you to customize the order of the topics appearing in the topic list. The default behavior is to view the list of topics sorted alphabetically. But you can uncheck the menu item Edit-Sorted list of topics and then rearrange the topics in a desired sequence by moving one or more topics to the top, up, down, or bottom.

To move your topics use either of the following:

•	The Edit menu commands to move the topics.

•	The keyboard shortcuts for these commands as mentioned on the above menu.

•	The arrow buttons on the right which represent move to Top, Up, Down, and, Bottom respectively.

•	Drag and drop the selected topics using the mouse.

The selected topics will occupy the position pointed to by the drop. You can drag the mouse cursor above or below the list to scroll it, if the target topic is not visible.


Please register to support the author

WhizNotes is a Shareware program. That means you are expected to pay a registration fee to the author in order to continue using this software beyond the initial trial period of thirty days. Remember, the author is not compensated for his efforts unless you register. With your support, it is possible for the author to continue providing enhancements for WhizNotes.

Registered version of WhizNotes also gives you several benefits

Find out more about what you get on registration by clicking on the following topics:

What you get when you Register

How to Register


Printing all the topics of a WhizNote file

If you select menu File-Print All Topics... then the following actions will take place:

You will be asked for a title for your printout. All the topics in your current WhizNote file will be printed, and proper headers and footers will be inserted by WhizNotes. In addition, a table of contents will be printed at the end.


Printing from a topic window

This is the feature that you will use most often when printing a single topic, say a letter. No special headers or footers will be printed except for the page numbers. This is what you usually want when printing a single topic.

To print from a topic window, open the topic window by double-clicking on it. Then select menu File-Print....

A standard print dialog will appear that will allow you to choose the standard printing options or to setup a printer.


Printing one or more selected topics

If you select menu File-Print Topic... then the following actions will take place, depending on whether you have selected a single or multiple topics in the WhizNote window.

Printing a single selected topic

The topic will be printed, and proper headers and footers will be inserted by WhizNotes when printing.

Printing multiple selected topics

You will be asked for a title for your printout; the topics will be printed and proper headers and footers will be inserted by WhizNotes. In addition, a table of contents will be printed at the end.

You can also print all the topics by choosing menu File-Print All Topics.


Quick start tutorial

The following steps will help you learn the main features of WhizNotes. After that, start using it and explore the Online Help as you go. It would be convenient if you print the contents of this help topic before performing the steps so that you don't have to switch between WhizNotes and this help.

Creating a WhizNote folder and adding topics to it

•	Select menu File-New WhizNote to open a new WhizNote window. You will see that a gray window appears that contains an empty list of topics; such a window is called a WhizNote window.

•	To add topics to this empty WhizNote window, select menu File-Add Topic or simply press the Insert key. You will be asked for a topic name. Enter any topic name, for example, "This is my first topic".

You will see that an editor window appears that allows you to enter the text for the topic. Try entering some text.  Now close this topic. Add a few more topics by following the same procedure. You will see that they are automatically sorted when they appear in the list.

•	You can open one or more topics for modification. To do that, select the topic that you want to modify by clicking on it. Then either press the Return key, or double-click on the topic name. You will see that the topic-text that you earlier entered appears in an editor window where you can modify it.

•	Try opening a number of topics and do not close their windows. Select the Window menu. You will see a list of all the open windows. You can recognize the currently active window by a check mark that appears next to its name. You can make any other window active by selecting it from the list, or you can directly click on the desired window to make it active. Try using other features on this Window menu. For example, try tiling, cascading, closing, and minimizing all the topics.

•	Now select menu File-Save WhizNote. You will have to select a name for this WhizNote file. Select name "TUTORIAL.WZN", then close the WhizNote window. All your topics are now saved under the file TUTORIAL.WZN.

•	To reopen the file TUTORIAL.WZN, select File menu. You will see that the name TUTORIAL.WZN appears at the bottom of the menu. Just click on it to open. See that the topics are listed when the window opens up.

Copying topics from one WhizNote to another

Let us open a new WhizNote and copy some topics to it.

Select menu File-New WhizNote to open a new WhizNote window. Click on 'Tutorial.Wzn' window to make it active. Select multiple topics by clicking on topics with the control key pressed. Now drag the mouse cursor while keeping the mouse button pressed. You will see that the cursor changes to the shape of multiple notes. Move this cursor to the second empty WhizNote window while keeping the mouse button pressed. Release the mouse button when you are on top of the empty window. This will drop the selected topics on the empty window. Now the use of this second window is over so discard it by closing it and saying "No" to the save prompt.

Inserting hypertext jumps between topics

Let us try inserting a jump from one topic to another.

Open one of your topics from TUTORIAL.WZN. Position caret (blinking cursor) at a place where you want to insert the jump. Now drag another topic as described earlier but this time drop it on the open topic window. You will see that a JUMP statement gets inserted in the topic. What is the use of this jump statement? Well, double-click anywhere on this JUMP statement and see what happens. You will instantly go to the topic window indicated in the JUMP. Isn't it convenient!

Creating Windows help

Now if you have the Microsoft Help Compiler, try to create help from the Tools menu. Just enter a title for your help when asked, and press OK. The help compilation should go through successfully unless WhizNotes is unable to locate your help compiler. Look at the generated help. You will see that the earlier inserted jump statement gets converted to Windows hypertext jump. If you are interested in help generation then don't forget to see Sample WZN file to demonstrate Help Generation to get a quick demonstration.

Refer to online help frequently

This is enough to get you started; but remember, we have barely scratched the surface of WhizNotes' abilities. Be sure to look at the contents in this help and explore other features as they interest you. You will discover more and more features that you can use to your advantage.


Renaming a topic

To rename a topic, just select the topic in the WhizNote window then select menu File-Rename Topic....

A dialog box appears that allows you to change the name of the topic.

Rename operation is also available from an open topic window.


Sample WZN file to demonstrate Help Generation

You will find a file named Samplhlp.Wzn in the directory where WhizNotes program is installed. This file contains examples of all Help generation statements that we have discussed.

To use this WhizNote file, simply open it and read the first topic "read me first". After reading the topic, close it and choose menu option Tools - Create Help. If you have the Help compiler on your path then you should see the compiler invoked in a DOS window followed by a message "Help was successfully created". Answer" yes" when asked to test this help, and see how it looks. You can also test it any time from menu Tools - Test Help. For your information, the file that is generated has the same name but a different extension: HLP. You can even directly double-click on such HLP files from the File Manager to look at their contents.

After testing the help, please compare the generated help with the formatting specified in the Samplhlp.Wzn file. Consult online help for these statements; experiment a little, and you will understand how to use these simple statements.

For those of you who do not have the Microsoft Help compiler, I have included the generated help file Samphlp.Hlp. You can directly double-click on it from the File Manager to see how the Help looks. This will assist you in deciding whether you want to invest in the Help Compiler. Please also see Advantages of Help Generation. I have purposely named the supplied help file a little different so that you will not erase it if you try help creation for Samplhlp.Wzn.

You may ask, "how to know whether the help compiler exists on your system?"

The answer is simple. If you purchased any of the Windows Software Development Kits in C, C++, Turbo Pascal, Visual Basic (professional) or other languages, then  most probably you already have the help compiler. The file name is "HC31.EXE". Try finding it using the File Manager.

Please also note that WhizNotes is smart enough to locate HC31.EXE and use it, provided it is on your DOS Path. If you have a later version of the help compiler or the file name is different then you will have to associate the extension HPJ with the proper help compiler yourself (in the File Manager).


Save WhizNote as.. menu option

You will use this option when you want to save a WhizNote file by some other name.

Also see

Creating a new WhizNote file

Saving a WhizNote file


Saving a WhizNote file

To save a WhizNote file, first bring that window into focus by clicking on it. Then select File-Save WhizNote. Note that saving does not close the window. If you have topic windows open and have made changes to them, you can remain assured that all the changes have been recorded in the WhizNote file.

If the window is "Untitled" then a standard File-save dialog appears that allows you to choose a name and location for the WhizNote file.

Please note that all the attributes of the topics, for example, their word wrap and auto-indent attributes, are remembered in the WhizNote file along with the topics. This is indeed very convenient, so that once you create a topic with a certain attribute, it stays that way.

Please note that a save operation is not actually performed if you have made no changes to the WhizNote since the last save. The changes that are considered are only the topic contents, their name or order. The change in options is never considered a change. For details, please see [~jump Desktop options for a WhizNote.

You can also "Save all modified WhizNotes" by another menu option.

Also see

Save WhizNote as.. menu option


Saving topic to an external text file

To save a topic as an external text file, open the topic window by double-clicking on the topic. Then select menu Save to text file....

Special saving for word wrapped topics

Please note that the file will be saved in exactly the same format as you see it on your open window. For example, if you have word wrap feature ON for a topic then the lines will be split exactly as you see them on the window. Hence, it is usually better to first maximize the topic window before saving it as an external text file.

If you want to export a topic with word wrapping on a specific column or no word wrapping, you should use Export feature instead of a save.


Search/replace operations

When you begin a search by choosing menu item Search-Find... in a WhizNote window then you can choose the option "Also Search Topic Contents".

If you choose this option then the search goes through each topic name and the topic contents. The topic window is opened for you if it contains the search text and the search text is automatically selected. If you continue the search by pressing F3 (menu Search-Find Next) then it continues through the rest of the topics in the WhizNote file. Try it out. You will like it.

Replace operation

If you are using a non-sorted list of topics, then you are allowed to perform a global replace through topics by selecting the menu item Search-Replace.... If you are doing a replace through topics with no prompt, and for all occurrences, then depending on your search specification, it may be a long operation. A Cancel replace dialog is provided that allows you to cancel this operation. It is suggested that you should perform a "Save WhizNote" just before starting such a global replace. This way if you make a mistake then you can discard all the changes and open the file again to start again.


Searching for a topic

You can search for a topic in two ways:

•	If you remember one or more beginning letters or words of a topic name then you can select menu Search-Select Topic Beginning With.... A dialog box appears that allows you to select a topic by typing the beginning characters. For more details see Select Topic Dialog Box.

•	If you remember an embedded word or phrase within a topic name then you can search for it by selecting menu Search-Find....

Also see

Search/replace operations


Select Topic Dialog Box

In this dialog box, as you type the beginning characters of a topic name, it selects the corresponding topic in the WhizNote window that matches the beginning characters. When you press OK on this dialog, the topic that is selected is opened for editing.

This feature is more useful when you are viewing the list of topics in a sorted order.


Specifying jumps & references to other help files

To specify jumps and references to other help files, use the following statements:

[~JUMPTOCONTEXT {visibleText = "visible-jump-text", contextString = "context-string", helpFile = "help-file-name"}]

[~REFTOCONTEXT {visibleText = "visible-jump-text", contextString = "context-string", helpFile = "help-file-name"}]

Explanation of parameters

•	visibleText - text to appear underlined

•	contextString - context string of the topic to jump to

•	helpFile - (optional) name of the help file containing the above topic

Integrating RTF topics created by other help authoring systems

You must have noticed that if you do not specify a helpFile then you can jump to a topic in your own help file. With WhizNotes generated help, you may rarely use this feature to jump to a topic in your own help file; but there are instance where it can be useful.

Let me give an example of when it would be useful. If you generated some of the RTF code using some other help generator (for instance, using the context sensitive RTF help generated by Visual C++ or Borland C++) then you can integrate these RTF files into your own help by including them in HPJ file. Then you can use these statements to jump to topics defined in these RTF files.


Temporary files created by WhizNotes

It is good to know that WhizNotes creates temporary files in a subdirectory of your working directory. Hence, it is best to ensure that the working directory, that you specify for WhizNotes in your Program Manager or other shell, is on a hard disk. By default, WhizNotes Setup sets up the working directory to the same directory where WhizNotes executable program is installed. But You can always change it in the program manager by using the menu 'File-Properties'.

You should know that the temporary files are created in the working directory under a subdirectory named WHIZTEMP. Further, more subdirectories with names like NTWORKAA.AAA, NTWORKAA.AAB, etc. are also created in this WHIZTEMP subdirectory. You should never delete such directories when WhizNotes is running, as you may lose any changes that you are making. But if WhizNotes is not running, and you find such directories then it means that WhizNotes could not cleanup the temporary files in its last run due to some problem, usually a hang. In that case, you can delete these subdirectories yourself.


Terminology of help generation

Here is a list of terms to help you better understand what help generation features are provided by WhizNotes.

Jump

In Windows help, you can see some underlined phrases that allow you to go to a different topic window by clicking on them.  These are called Jumps. For example, here is a jump: Window menu. WhizNotes allows you to insert jump statements by dragging topic names on top of the open topics. You can even test the jump by double-clicking on such a jump statement.

Popup or a reference

These are similar to jump but are underlined with dashes. For example, here is a reference: Window menu. When you click on a reference then the indicated topic is opened as a popup window. This is suitable for small topics or definitions. In WhizNotes, the references are inserted similar to the Jump statements and the double-clicking works similar to a Jump.

Contents

In Windows help, at any time, you can press on a button "Contents" and a table of contents appears. WhizNotes generates such a Contents topic for you by default where it includes all the topics from your topic list appearing in the same sequence. This is often not desirable and you should make your own topic with the name "Contents" where you should include only the top level topics with proper formatting for better readability. WhizNotes will use your topic "Contents" if it is present. Foreign users may want to designate a different topic for Contents. This can be done by using advanced options called "GlobalHelpOptions".

Keywords

When using Windows help, you can use the search facility where a dialog box appears showing you a list of phrases or words. On selecting a particular word, you are shown a list of topics related to that word. Such words or phrases are called Keywords. By default, WhizNotes assigns one keyword to each topic that is same as the topic name. If you do not want that then you can use help attribute definitions to avoid that. In addition, by using the help attributes, you can define more keywords for a particular topic.

Browsing sequences

Look at the top of this help window. You will see push buttons ">>" and "<<" that guide you through a series of related topics. These are called Browse groups or Browse sequences. WhizNotes allows you to define Browse sequences by simply defining a list of topics in special topics called "help attributes".

Help Macros

These are very powerful features of Windows help. They allow you to customize the Windows help to include more buttons or features. WhizNotes allows you to define macros for topics as well as embedded macros in the text of topics.

Conditional help generation

This is a very powerful feature of WhizNotes that allows you to select topics and topic text for generating a different version of the help from the same WhizNote file. Please do not confuse it with BUILDTAG provided with the help compiler. This is more powerful and more convenient to use than the BUILDTAGS.

WhizNotes statements

These are statements like [~JUMP...], [~BOLD...] etc. that allow you to enhance the appearance of your help text. For details, please look at Details of WhizNotes help generation statements. WhizNotes allows you to make your custom statements to add to WhizNotes' formatting capabilities.


text content

The subject matter or thoughts expressed in a document.


The philosophy of WhizNotes

When you start writing, what seems to be more important to you: the text content of your document, or its appearance?

You will agree that the text content is more important in the initial research phase of a writing project. After all, the text content is the soul of a document. If it is not thought out properly then no matter what you do with the document's appearance, it would not be effective.

When you begin to write, your foremost aim is to put your creative thoughts into words. You are not worried about the appearance of the document at this point. Rather, you want an uninterrupted flow of thoughts to your text.

This is also true when you are learning a new subject and making notes,  planning something, or just involved in creative writing or thinking.

Creativity and randomness

Preparing a document from scratch is a creative process. You must have noticed that these thoughts occur to you in a random manner.

For instance, when you are working on one part of the document you suddenly get an idea about the same or an altogether different subject. Also, while studying a particular topic, in a flash, you may solve an earlier problem that had been nagging at the back of your mind. Well, the ways of a human mind are mysterious. It seems to work in the background, that too on multiple problems at a time. How can you cope with this train of random ideas effectively?

First of all, it is important that you are able to record these ideas as and when they occur. That is not enough! You should also be able to group, identify, retrieve and print your random notes easily. Most of us resort to bits and pieces of paper when dealing with such problems. Isn't it an era to expect more from your computer?

Do word processors really help you in this creative phase?

You will notice that most of the modern writing tools and sophisticated word processors tend to concentrate on only one aspect of documentation: its appearance and appearance only.

A number of excellent word processors are available on PC today, especially in Windows environment. But, unfortunately, there is not much help around when it comes to preparing the document's soul: its subject matter.

When recording the random pieces of information or ideas, we may often take help of the good old 'pen and paper'. Why don't we use a simple text editor like Notepad? There may be many reasons:

•	Because the underlying operating system supports limited number of characters in the filename and we won't be able to recognize our ideas if we keep each one in a different file. Moreover, certain special characters are prohibited in the filename.

•	It is even more of a problem to group these cryptic file names and remember where we kept them.

•	Printing or looking at all of them at once as a single entity also requires more effort.

•	The methods to organize these pieces of information are not very convenient under the operating system, especially when you have to link one information with another.

•	Even if you use some of the file system utilities that allow you to assign a descriptive text to your files, it does not help when all these windows are open for editing in a program. You still have to manage these windows by recognizing file names in the titles, which is a painful process.

So what do we end up doing? We usually give up and try to work in a single large document file. This forces us to think in a way that is just not the way we think.

Why doesn't your computer help you when it can do more? Certainly, it can do better than those pieces of paper! Well, you need not be frustrated any more. WhizNotes comes to your help with powerful topic management capabilities. It gives you maximum flexibility in organizing your thoughts.

A word on outlining

Although WhizNotes can also be used for single-level outlining, it's primary use is different and precedes that of an outliner. There is a fine line between the research and the outlining phases of your writing project. The research phase belongs in your creative mind, whereas outlining is more of a rational process where you have already selected what ideas belong and what don't belong, and you are trying to prioritize them in a sequence and in a hierarchy. According to many creative writing authorities, you should not engage in outlining too soon, otherwise your first draft is going to suffer. Intead, you should  give equal importance to all your random ideas occurring in the research phase with no sequence assigned to the notes whatsoever. In WhizNotes terms, you will be placing each of these ideas in a different topic and will keep the topics in the sorted order, rather than in sequence. As your research progresses, with time to nurture them-many of these ideas will take a better shape in your creative mind, and you will also gather some new ones. This is the phase where WhizNotes is extremely useful, and there is no other program quite like it.

Using WhizNotes to author a help system

When you are writing a help system you will feel an even greater need for creating information in pieces and by topics. Also, you will constantly need to establish relationship between your topics and to move from topic to topic to verify the need for the explicit relationship that you created. WhizNotes makes it incredibly simple to do that by allowing you to drag and drop topic names on top of other topics. This inserts jump statements which allow you to move from topic to topic by double-clicking on them. Later when you create the Windows help then these statements are converted into Windows hypertext jumps. The ability to create information in pieces and reorganize it in pieces is vital for any help authoring. Many so called help authoring tools fail to simplify this most important aspect of help writing. They are using a different paradigm; they require you to remember and pre-plan lots of information about your topics, and are often used in the later stages when you have completed the most painful task of help writing--planning your topic contents and the relationship between them. WhizNotes helps you from the early stages of help development: the stages that require a major and most painful chunk of your total effort.

Also see

Features of WhizNotes


Tips for the Power User

It is suggested that you read this topic after using WhizNotes for some time, as it assumes a working knowledge of WhizNotes' features.

Use File Manager to open WZN files

For details see topic Opening from File Manager.

Drop files from the File Manager on to a WhizNote window

You can insert a copy of external text files as topics by either choosing the "Import whole files" or by dropping them on to a WhizNote window from the File Manager. You can print a bunch of files this way using the nice printing features of WhizNotes. Before printing, you can rename the copied topics to assign them more meaningful names. If the files you are printing are program files, then it is better to select a fixed font before printing.

Use keyboard accelerators for convenience

Almost all the WhizNotes menu items have keyboard accelerators associated with them. You should use them to your advantage by memorizing the accelerators for the most often used functions.

For example, for adding a topic, simply press INSERT key. For deleting a topic, press DELETE key.

DOS text files

For viewing DOS text files containing special graphic characters, use the "terminal" font. Also, to convert a word wrapped text to DOS line based text file, use the special export feature to break at a specified column. It is very convenient to prepare files like README.TXT which are usually viewed by a TYPE command at the DOS prompt.

Use "Window" menu to unclutter your desktop

The MDI features available in Window menu are indeed very convenient. You should try them and use them whenever possible. For example, when you are dragging a topic from a WhizNote onto a topic editor, you should minimize the unneeded windows and then "Tile" the ones that you want to work with. This is more convenient for dragging. You may also use Window menu to quickly get to another window.

Use word wrapping

You should use word wrapping for any document that you want to later edit with WYSIWYG word processors like MS Word. This will preserve your paragraphs. You should also use Word wrapping if you are creating a document to be converted to a Windows help file.

There is a tricky point related to word wrapping: if you paste non-word-wrapped text from clipboard then you must remove the ending new line characters on consecutive lines, in a paragraph, for word wrapping to be effective. To do this, make your editor window as large as possible. Then on each line press END to jump to the end of line and press DELETE till the next line joins the end of the line. The new line is only necessary at the end of the paragraph. To avoid this problem, it is better to import such a text from a file using the word wrap feature of import.

Try export text feature

Export text feature is useful when you want to make a text file of your whole document. For details, see Exporting Selected Topics to a Text File.

Tip for programmers when generating help

•	When you include the C header file (.INC) generated by WhizNotes for context-sensitive help, you may want to put #ifndef type statements to avoid multiple inclusion of this file. You can not do that in the INC file, as the help compiler does not like this. For this purpose, use another intermediate H file, say HELPIDS.H, and put #ifndef statements in that file. Now you can use HELPIDS.H to include any other .INC or H files.

•	You can also integrate the context-sensitive help generated by Visual C++ and Borland C++ with your WhizNotes help. For this you need to customize WhizNotes generated HPJ file and include all other RTF files in the proper section.

•	You will notice that after compiling your whole program, just for minor changes in your help text, the INC file is generated and causes recompilation of your project file or make, even if you have not added, deleted or renamed any topics. To solve this problem, include a copy of the INC file in your project, instead of the one directly generated by WhizNotes. Use a file comparison utility regularly to check when the list of topics changes and you need to use a new copy in your project.

Other useful features that may not be obvious to you

•	Whenever you save a WhizNote file, a backup file with the extension "WBK" is created automatically. This is for your protection. These files can not be directly opened by WhizNotes; you need to rename them to a WZN file manually.

•	When you save a WhizNote, and you are working in an editor then all the topics of the parent WhizNote along with the WhizNote itself are saved. Any other open WhizNotes are not affected. When you have changed a number of topics then this save allows you to save the topics without closing them. An option is also available to save all modified WhizNotes.

•	You can use Window-close all topics to only close all the topic windows. Also, when you choose to close all windows, WhizNotes is smart enough to first close the topics and then the WhizNote files.

•	The topic names are case insensitive.

•	If you double-click on a topic name that is already open, the topic window comes into focus.

•	Use quick draft printing as described. It is really convenient. It is not  supported properly by many Windows programs. Fortunately WhizNotes handles it very well.

•	Use a [~PAGE] statement in your text anywhere to force a page-break. Also, if you are viewing external text files and they contain Form-Feed control characters (^L) then WhizNotes will perform a page break at such characters.

Also see

Temporary files created by WhizNotes


Toolbar/Statusbar

Frequently used operations are available on a toolbar below the menubar. To know  the operation associated with a button, just press it and its menu equivalent will be shown on the status bar at the bottom.

You can choose to view or not to view the toolbar and statusbar by the options menu. You may want to view the toolbar all the time as it is pretty useful. Currently, the status bar only serves to show the menu equivalents for the buttons on the toolbar. Once you get used to the toolbar buttons, you may eliminate the status bar by selecting menu Options-Statusbar.


Trademarks

In this help document, the following words have been used:

•	Borland is a registered trademark of Borland International.

•	Microsoft is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation.

•	"Windows" refers to the Microsoft Windows operating system. "Windows" is a trademark that refers only to this Microsoft product.

•	"MS Word" refers to "Microsoft Word" which is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation.

•	Microsoft Help Compiler is a product of Microsoft which is distributed with many Windows Software Development Kits (SDKs).

•	Turbo C++, Turbo Pascal, and Borland C++ are Borland products.

•	Visual C++ and Visual Basic are Microsoft products.


Using Quick draft printing for convenience

Have you ever used Generic Text Driver for printing? If not, you are missing considerable savings in printing time, especially if you are using slower printers. Usually, when printing a draft copy of your text, you want the quickest possible printing. The Generic Text Driver is the answer. If you setup your printer to use Generic Text Driver as an additional option, you can choose it for quick draft printing. But wait: if you use Generic Text Driver with Notepad or other text editors, you will see that the  page-breaks do not occur properly. This seems to be a problem with the Generic Text Driver, so that the programs see a larger page-size than actual.

WhizNotes works around this problem

For your convenience, WhizNotes takes extra care to implement a work around for this problem. With WhizNotes, you will not see wrong page-breaks when using the Generic Text Driver. Start using it and save valuable review time.


What is a delimiter

In order to import topics from a text file, it is necessary to understand that the text file must have a unique identifier line preceding the line which contains the name of a new topic. Otherwise, it is not possible for WhizNotes to make out the end of one topic and the beginning of the next one.

For example,

Your text file may look like this:

/* A TOPIC */

First Topic Name

...

...text for the topic...

/* A TOPIC */

Second Topic Name

...

...text for the topic...

Thus, the line /* A TOPIC */ identifies that a new topic is starting, and the next line contains a topic name. Such a line is called a delimiter line. In above example the line containing /* A TOPIC */ is a delimiter line. A delimiter must be present in the text file to use the import topics facility.


What is a topic?

A WhizNote topic is any block of text that you want to keep and identify by a descriptive name so that you can easily retrieve it later.

WhizNotes allows you to keep related topics in a single WhizNote file where they can be easily identified and accessed.

WhizNotes does not restrict you in any way to choose names for your topics. They can be very long names with embedded spaces and special characters. Once you get this flexibility to choose the names that you want, you will never want to be without it.

Also see

What is a WhizNote file?

Creating a new topic

Opening a topic for editing

Renaming a topic

Deleting a topic

Operations on multiple topics


What is a WhizNote file?

A WhizNote file is a collection of many topics. You create such files with the help of WhizNotes. These WhizNote files have the extension ".WZN".

It is up to you to group any topics you want into one WZN or WhizNote file. This way you don't have to remember each of your topic names. All you need to remember is the WhizNote file name that serves as a sort of folder name.

A topic within a WhizNote file can be any independent text note that you want to recognize by name.

Also see

What is a topic?

Examples of WhizNote files

Creating a new WhizNote file


What is new in this version

New features since version 1.2

Here is a list of topics containing outstanding new features of WhizNotes 2.0. Even if you have read these topics before, I would recommend that you look at them again so that you do not miss any features. Also, please remember to visit the sub-topics that you recognize from version 1.2. Chances are, that they also contain new and useful information.

I also want to emphasize that, there are numerous small and subtle improvements that I have decided not to document. I am sure you will notice them sooner or later.

Major new features:

Toolbar/Statusbar

Ordering your topics in the topic list

Opening from File Manager

Search/replace operations

Terminology of help generation

Details of WhizNotes help generation statements

How to create recorder macros for help statements

Options menu

Desktop options for a WhizNote

Exporting Selected Topics to a Text File

Importing Topics from a text file

Importing whole text files as topics

Inserting date/time in your text

Edit menu copy operations for a WhizNote window

Obtaining word count

Window menu

Tips for the Power User

Features that users overlooked earlier

Users seem to have overlooked some convenient features of WhizNotes by not reading the help in detail. A list of such features is provided in Features that users overlooked earlier.

Known limitations of WhizNotes

Please look at Limits setup in WhizNotes.


What you get when you Register

What are the advantages of registering? If you have registered any Shareware program before, then you know it already. Here is a list of benefits:

•	Legality: Your license to use the software without registration expires after 30 days.

•	Timeliness: You will receive the most recent version of WhizNotes.

•	Support: Free support is included with your registration; please see the support policy later in this topic.

•	Updates: As a registered user you will get timely and frequent updates by following a simple procedure. See details later in this topic.

•	You will get a printed brochure that will point out the important features of WhizNotes. You will also get a data-bank of illuminating questions and answers on WhizNotes.

•	The Registration Reminder screen is removed wherever it appears. This gives you many advantages. You can double-click on a WZN file in the File Manager or some other Shell and directly go to WhizNotes for looking at the file. In the registered version, even if WhizNotes is already running it will open the file for you.

•	The message "This help file has been created with unregistered copy of WhizNotes" will not appear when you generate help files with the Registered Version. In other words, you get the license for unlimited commercial usage of WhizNotes to generate help. You also get the license to distribute any WhizNote files that you create using WhizNotes. Note that WhizNotes encodes various levels of information into your help files so that a WhizNotes generated help can be recognized for detecting unlicensed commercial usage of WhizNotes.

Also, once the above message is removed, the feature to use help macros in topic attributes starts working.

•	Some advanced topics have not been included in shareware help. The reason is that they are likely to generate many queries from users, and we can not afford to support them for shareware users. If you register, you will get these advanced topics and will get support for them. They are related to creating your own custom RTF macros and customizing global options for help generation.

•	You will get an add-on data conversion tool as a bonus that will allow you to export the topics in non-help RTF format for use with your favorite word processor. You can use all the WhizNotes formatting commands that were originally meant for help users only. Also, help users will get an easy way to convert their help to a printable document.

Free technical support for first three months

For Registered users, technical support by phone will be provided for by Advanced Support Group, Inc.

There is no charge for technical support for first three months for a total connect time not exceeding 30 minutes. After that some charges may apply. For details, please contact Advanced Support Group, Inc.

Unlimited technical support through electronic mail on Compuserve is available, free of charge, to the registered users.

Get updates by a unique scheme

Those of you who do not know the difference between an update and an upgrade should note that an update is released only when fixes for major bugs are made. With WhizNotes, users generate so many new ideas that the updates are more likely to contain small enhancements rather than bug fixes. Hence, we have come up with a unique scheme: updates will be available as small patch files included with subsequent shareware versions. The patches are also likely to be available as separately downloadable small files on Compuserve and other BBSs.

This way you can get more frequent and timely updates at the low cost (or no cost) of a shareware version. This will also help us maintain WhizNotes at an affordable price for the users.

Special discounts on upgrades

As a registered user, you will continue to get subsequent major versions of WhizNotes at special upgrade prices.

WhizNotes is evolving

If you find WhizNotes useful and register for it then you can take pride in the fact that you are promoting the cause of Shareware. Shareware means user can try the software before actually investing money to buy it. Think of what the future means to you and thousands of users like you. When you buy Shareware, it means that you really care for the software and its usefulness. You don't care for the shrink-wrapping or advertising that only tends to increase its cost.

I have received brilliant feedback and suggestions from the users, and I am amazed at the variety of uses that people have found for this program. There are many many enhancements on the waiting list, and you can look forward to more and more useful features in future versions.

I have ambitious plans to improve WhizNotes. But again, all this is not possible without your support. So if you like WhizNotes, please register as soon as possible and participate in an exciting development that has evolved based on the needs of users like you.

Send your questions & suggestions to me

You can send your questions or queries by electronic mail at the following address on Compuserve:

Sanjay Kanade  71303,20

If you don't have access to e-mail then you can contact Advanced Support Group, Inc. at the address mentioned in the order form.

Also see

How to Register


WhizNotes Help Generation Dialog Box

This dialog box appears when you select menu Tools-Create Help... to generate Windows hypertext help from a WhizNote file. It allows you to select the following options for help generation:

Title for Help Window

The title that you choose here will appear as the title of the generated Windows Help.

Copyright Notice

You can put your Copyright Notice here which will appear in the about box of the generated Windows Help. For example, please look at the About Box of this help that you are reading. Please note that you can enter a Copyright symbol by typing 0169 while keeping the ALT key pressed.

Type of font

Microsoft documentation recommends that you should use "MS Sans Serif" size 10 font for help documentation. If you specify "recommended font" then this is the font that will be selected by WhizNotes. If you want another font, select the "Same as Whiznote" option. In this case the font will be same as the font for WhizNote: one that you specified in the "Options" for the WhizNote.

Options

Compress Help file

If you check this box, you can generate a compressed Help file which requires lesser space but needs more time for creation. It is best to use this option when you are finally generating a help file to be distributed to your customers.

Note that WhizNotes encodes some information into your help files so that a WhizNotes generated help can be recognized for detecting unlicensed usage of WhizNotes.

Optimize for CD ROM

With this option, the help file is optimized so that it is read more efficiently from a CD ROM. See your help compiler documentation for more details.

Remove browse buttons

The browse buttons are identified by '>>' and '<<' symbols on the help window. They are supposed to guide the user through a series of related topics. If you have not specified any browse sequences in your topics, and the order of topics in the WhizNote file is such that it will not make any sense if the user tries to move sequentially through all of the topics, then it is best to remove these buttons so as not to confuse the user.

Advanced Options

To use the advanced options you need to understand what files are created by WhizNotes during  the help generation process. For your information, the files with following extensions are generated by WhizNotes. All these files have the same name as your WhizNote file, but have different extensions:

•	HPJ	Help Project File

•	BAT	Batch file to run compilation

•	RTF	Rich Text Format (RTF) representation of your WhizNote

•	HPO	Output file for the help compilation

Just create RTF files...

This is very useful if you are experimenting with implementing your own RTF macros, or you want to enhance WhizNotes generated help by using an RTF editor like MS Word. If you choose this option then WhizNotes just generates all the above files needed to run the help compiler, but actually stops just before running the compiler.

At this point, you can make whatever changes you want to the RTF and HPJ files generated by WhizNotes. Then you can uncheck this option and check the next one that allows to run the help compiler on the changed files.

Just run the help compiler

After making your custom changes to RTF or HPJ files as mentioned above, you need not go to DOS to run the BAT file prepared by WhizNotes. You can just check this option and WhizNotes will only run the help compiler without disturbing the changed RTF, or, HPJ file. Earlier version of WhizNotes required you to go to DOS to perform this kind of custom generation.

Of course, if you were to uncheck this option later then remember that next help generation will regenerate the RTF and other files and will overwrite your changes.

Generate C Header file

This option is for the programmers who want to integrate calls to the help topics in their program. A C language header file is generated that contains the #defines for the context strings used by WhizNotes. For details on how to use this information for integration, please look into your Help compiler documentation. WhizNotes generates a file with extension INC which you can include in your programs. To invoke a particular help topic you need to call the function WinHelp() with HELP_CONTEXT parameter, giving a context-id from the INC file. For your convenience, the INC file contains the topic names in the form of comments.

A note for the programmers who found it difficult to use context-ids generated by the earlier version of WhizNotes: You will find that now WhizNotes generates more meaningful context-ids derived from the topic names, instead of number based ids. These are less likely to change with your evolving help project. Also, you can override them if you don't like the default ones. See Tips for the Power User for some tips on usage of context-ids.

Selectively generate by using tags

This needs a fairly advanced discussion. For details, please look at Conditional help generation.


WhizNotes Jump

A WhizNotes jump is a hypertext jump statement that allows you to double-click on the jump and go to the topic window indicated. This is a very convenient feature of WhizNotes. Also, when you create Windows help then WhizNotes jump statements are converted into Windows hypertext jumps.


Window menu

There is a new option to minimize all topics on the Window menu. There is another one for horizontal tiling of the windows.