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Getting More Information

Apex provides several help facilities. The online tutorial, online help files, and online manuals are accessible from the Help command menu as illustrated in Figure 8. The manual pages provided by Apex are accessible from the UNIX command line within an Apex shell window.

Figure 8 Help Menu


About this Chapter

This chapter describes the numerous help facilities included in Apex. The topics covered are:


Online Help Via Netscape

Apex online help is provided in HTML files. By default Apex attempts to use Netscape to diaplay the on-line help files. In earlier releases of Apex a version of Netscape was also provided. To view the online help with another browser, set the switch $APEX_HELP_BROWSER, to the path of the desired browser, and set the switch $APEX_HELP_BROWSER_OPEN, to the appropriate command to open a file. Note that other browsers have not been tested with Apex, so attempting to access the online help with another browser may have unpredictable results.

The apexinit command will automatically try to start Netscape or $APEX_HELP_BROWSER if you have that set. To avoid starting Netscape, use the -noversion (alias -nover) option on the apexinit command line.

If Netscape does not come up, either you specified -nover or the version of Netscape on your search path does not work for the platform you are on. Check 'which netscape' you are running and try running it from an Apex shell to see what happens. If you are attempting to run a version of Netscape that does not run on your platform, an error message will be displayed.

Note that Apex will run this with the -install option so that it does not foul the color maps for Apex. If you get this error, set $APEX_HELP_BROWSER to the path of a browser which works on your platform.

Unless otherwise instructed, Apex will attempt to use an existing active browser. It will continue to use this browser for the duration of the Apex session or until the browser is closed or an error occurs. To force Apex to start a new browser, set the APEX_HELP_BROWSER_PRIVATE switch to True.

If you are planning on using the online documentation, we recommend that you start Netscape first, before running Apex. Otherwise, the first time you attempt to access the online help, you may have to reselect the document or the help button a second time after Netscape comes up because the browser is slow to start the first time. This is true on machines that are slower or under a heavy load.


The Online Tutorial

The online Tutorial introduces you to Apex fundamentals and leads you through a series of editing, compiling, debugging, and configuration controlling exercises. The tutorial is accessible from any Apex window.

To use the tutorial, select the Help > Tutorial menu item from any Apex window. Apex then displays an introduction to the Tutorial. To work through the examples that the tutorial provides, follow the online instructions.


Quick Start Tutorials

For Apex C/C++ and Apex Duo, Quick Start tutorials, providing a very basic introduction to getting started with Apex are provided for Apex C/C++ and Java. These tutorials introduce the user to basic Apex concepts and quickly step the user through basic getting started operations such as setting up a work area, and creating and compiling C/C++ or Java programs.


Online Manuals

You can access Apex documents electronically by choosing items from the Help > Manuals menu in any Apex window. The online documents available from the Help menu contain more detailed reference material than is generally found in this guide. These documents are described in Table 2.

Note: The exact list of documents available through the Help > Manuals command varies with each Apex product and is dependent on what has been installed. Additional documents relating to optional or separately licensed products such as TestMate, RCI, AXI, Ada Analyzer, Summit/TM, Rose, or Apex for Rexec, Tornado, or LynxOS, will also be accessible if these products have been installed.

Table 2 Manuals Available Online
Document
Description
Online Help Reference
The online help for Apex. Describes the commands, menus and dialogs of the Apex GUI
Getting Started
Basic information about using Apex
Using and Customizing Summit/CM
How to use and customize the Summit/CM configuration management system.
Programming with Apex
Instructions on editing, linking, compiling programs and managing projects and areas.
Concepts Guide
High-level document describing Apex concepts and how to use Apex for the software development
Release Note
Description of changes from previous releases
Installing Apex
Description of how to install Apex
Tutorial
Interactive, online tutorial covers creation, compiling, running, and debugging code and placing code under configuration control.
Ada Compiler Reference (Ada only)
Ada compiler reference including Appendix F and Annex M.
C/C++ Compiler Reference (C/C++ only)
C/C++ compiler reference
Using the Apex Debugger
How to use the Apex debugger and all its commands
Command Reference
Command line reference
Manual Pages
Man pages for the command line commands
Ada Extended Runtime Services Reference (Ada only)
Reference for the extended Ada runtime services
Using the Ada Runtime (Ada only)
Reference for the Ada Runtime system
Migrating Legacy C/C++ Code to Apex (C/C++ only)
Description of how to decide which migration technique to use and the tools available for migration
Ada 83 Language Reference Manual (LRM) (Ada only)
The official Ada 83 LRM
Ada 95 Language Reference Manual (LRM) (Ada only)
The official Annotated Ada 95 LRM
Migrating from VADS to Apex
Guide on how to convert VADS Ada programs to Apex Ada
Using Multithreaded Ada (Ada only)
Description of the multithreaded Ada capabilities available on the Digital Unix, SGI IRIX and Sun SPARC Solaris platforms
Using Apex Shadowing
Guide to the shadowing facilities which provide the capability of linking an Apex library context to a working directory on a TCP/IP networked PC running Windows NT/95.
Scripting Language Reference
Guide to the Apex_Shell scripting facilities. This scripting language uses the standard cshell syntax and semantics and has extensions to provide direct access to objects in Apex.
JProgramming using Java
Guide to the Java capabilities included in Apex
Rational ASIS Concepts Guide (Ada only)
Describes the Rational implementation of the Ada Semantic Interface Specification (ASIS)
Rational ASIS Online Reference (Ada only)
Includes the ASIS standard version 1.1.0 with annotations describing the Rational implementation


Obtaining Online Help about Menu or Button Bar Items (Context-Sensitive Help)

To obtain help information about any menu item or button on the button bar:

1 . Select Help > On Context.

The cursor changes to a question mark.

2 . Select any menu item or button with the mouse.

When you left-click a menu item with the help cursor, Apex does not execute the command. Instead, Apex opens a an online help window that describes the command or button.


Obtaining Online Help about Dialog Boxes

Each dialog box contains a Help button. When you left-click the Help button, Apex opens a hypertext window to an online help window that describes the dialog box and all its fields.


Using the Master Index

When you select the Help > Index menu item, Apex opens the Master help index. The initial page displayed has links to each of the index letters. Click any of these letters to go to the desired letter. Once there, click on any topic to display information on that topic.


Navigating in Hypertext

When information about a topic appears on a hypertext page, more information related to the same topic is often available on other pages. When more information on a topic is available, the online help system lets you jump directly to the related information.

For more information about the online help system, select Help > On Help.


Other Buttons in the Help Menu

Other buttons in the Help menu provide information on specific subjects. They are listed in Table 3 .

Table 3 Other Help Menu Buttons Functions
Menu item
Displayed information
On Help
The online help system
On Window
The current window
On Keys
Using the keyboard
On Mouse
Using the mouse
On Version
This release of Apex

With the exception of On Version, these menu items take you into portions of the online help system. From these pages, you can use the previously described features.


Man Pages

Apex provides UNIX-style manual (man) pages for its command-line interface. To view the man page for any Apex command, enter the man command at the shell prompt inside any Apex xterm window:

For example, to obtain information about the apexinit command, enter:


Rational's World Wide Web Site

To get the latest information, please visit our Web site at www.rational.com.


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support@rational.com
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