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frequently asked questions about online help and how to set up and use searching.
Copy the CourseWare folder from the documentation CD into your user_data folder. (usually aw/<username>/Alias/user_data).
You need a computer with a running Web server and the PERL language installed.
Note: you can install these and the help on you own machine and read your local help through the Web server on your own machine.
In StudioTools, set the Help location option (choose Preferences > General Preferences, then click the System options section) to the URL of the directory that you copied html to.
You should have Netscape Navigator 4.61+, Netscape Navigator 6+, Mozilla, Internet Explorer 4+, or any other browser that supports JavaScript, CSS, and the DOM. We recommend you use Mozilla, Netscape Navigator 6, or Internet Explorer.
Note: on UNIX StudioTools runs netscape by name, so if you want to replace netscape with another browser you will have to create a link to it called netscape and put it in the command path before the real netscape executable.
Note: you can actually read the help documents using any browser, even browsers without JavaScript (including PDA browsers such as Pocket Internet Explorer). However many of the interface features, including search, will not be available.
You should enable JavaScript. To use local search (when not reading the help from a Web server) in Netscape Navigator, you must also enable Java.
The local search scripts use Java calls to read the search index files stored on your local machine, which is not possible for a Web page to do without Java.
Note: this only applies to local search. If you are reading the help through a Web server, you do not need to enable Java.
Find the html directory and open index.html.
Netscape Navigator 4.x has a number of bugs and partially-implemented features related to the rendering of style sheets and dynamic HTML. To work around these limitations we display a slightly simplified interface when the help is viewed in Navigator 4.x. In particular, the collapsable topic outlines are not available in Navigator 4.x.
Click 
and 
to expand or hide information under headings.
Click 
to show additional information about the text.
Click 
and 
to expand or hide all the headings in the TOC or topic at once.
The online help uses two different kinds of search, depending on how you are reading the online help.
If you are reading the help directly from your local drive or network (through a file: URL), the search uses Java (Navigator) or ActiveX (Internet Explorer) to read the search indexes. This may require you to grant increased security privelages to the scripts to allow them to read local files.
If you are reading the help from a Web server (through an http: URL), the search uses a PERL CGI script to read the search indexes. Since this happens on the server, it does not require you to grant additional privelages.
Note: if possible, we recommend you install the online help on a Web server (or install and run a Web server and PERL on your own computer) to take advantage of the much greater speed of the server-side search.
In previous versions of StudioTools, we used a workaround to allow local searches without a Web-server. The workaround, however, was slow, only allowed you to search one book at a time, and tended to cause problems with Netscape Navigator 4.x.
The new local search (using Java/ActiveX) is much more robust and reliable. It works and looks exactly like the server-side search. It is also faster than the previous local search, but still much slower than the server-side search.
Previously, the search allowed you to search only certain books, and required you to set an option to only show topics containing all the words you typed. The new search always searches in all books, and organizes the results by book. The new search always shows only the topics that contain all the words you typed. These changes make using search easier and give better results.
You can now specify that a certain word must NOT appear in the search results by typing a minus sign (-) immediately before the word, for example -light.
Remember that the search only shows topics that contain ALL of the words you type.
The search ignores suffixes. For example, "light", "lights", and "lighting" are all considered the same.
To exclude a word from your search, put a minus sign (-) immediately in front of the word you want to avoid.
In order to search the online help, the local search script needs permission to read the files stored on your local computer or network (normally, this is not allowed for security reasons). Turn on the Remember this decision checkbox and the click Grant.
Note: this only applies to local search. If you are reading the help through a Web server, you will not be asked to grant additional privelages.
If you open the online help locally in Internet Explorer, the local search script will attempt to create an ActiveX object that can read from the local filesystem. If your setting for ActiveX security for the local filesystem is set to Prompt, you will be asked to confirm that the local search script is allowed to read local files.
To disable this prompt:
1. In Internet Explorer, choose View > Internet Options.
2. Click the Security tab.
3. Click Local intranet.
4. Click Custom Level.
5. Under Initialize and script ActiveX controls not marked as safe, click Enable.
If you open the online help locally in Internet Explorer, the local search script will attempt to create an ActiveX object that can read from the local filesystem. If your setting for ActiveX security for the local filesystem is set to Disable, the script will not be able to create the object and Internet Explorer will show an error. The search will not be available.
To disable this error:
1. In Internet Explorer, choose View > Internet Options.
2. Click the Security tab.
3. Click Local intranet.
4. Click Custom Level.
5. Under Initialize and script ActiveX controls not marked as safe, click Enable.
Find a folder named PDFs on the documentation CD. The PDFs folder contains PDF versions of the documentation. You can print them on your printer or take them to a copy center or service bureau to have them printed professionally.
Note that the copyright license on the documentation allows only legitimate licence holders to print one copy of the documentation without special permission. See the documentation copyright information for details.