Help System
The Help System plug-in, org.eclipse.help, defines two extension
points ("contexts" and "toc") which allow individual plug-ins
to contribute context-sensitive help and online help for their components.
A typical plug-in that provides documentation would make use of these extension
points.
Other extension points serve extending capabilities of the help system.
For more advanced applications, there is also an extension point ("support")
for plugging in a a help system UI.
Extension Points
The following extension points can be used to extend the help system:
Preferences
The following preferences settings can be used with the help system:
- log_level: denotes what kind of information gets written to the
help log. Use one of the following tree values.
- 0: log errors only
- 1: log errors and warnings
- 2: log errors, warnings and information (debug) messages
- help_home: The page to show inn the content area when opening
help. Specify your html page as /pluginId/path/to/home.html. Currently,
the default home is /org.eclipse.help/doc/help_home.html.
- linksView: set to true or false to control the visibility of
the related links view. Note: this option has no effect in the infocenter.
- bookmarksView: set to true or false to control the visibility
of the bookmarks view. Note: this option has no effect in the infocenter.
- baseTOCS: ordered list of help TOC's (books) as they would appear
on the bookshelf. All the other TOCS will be follow these books. Non-present
TOC's on this list will be ignored. Use the location of each TOC as /pluginId/path/to/toc.xml.
- imagesDirectory: directory containing images used in the help
view. Images must have the same name as those in the org.eclipse.help.webapp
plugin. Use the /pluginID/directory format. Default is "images".
- advanced.toolbarBackground: CSS background for toolbars.
Value is used in browsers that display advanced help UI. Default is
"ButtonFace"
- advanced.viewBackground: CSS background for navigation views.
Value is used in browsers that display advanced help UI. Default is
"Window"
- advanced.toolbarFont: CSS font for toolbars. Value is used
in browsers that display advanced help UI. Default is "icon"
- advanced.viewFont: CSS font for navigation views. Value
is used in browsers that display advanced help UI. Default is "icon"
- basic.toolbarBackground: background color for toolbars.
Value is used in browsers displaying basic help UI. Default is "#D4D0C8"
- basic.viewBackground: background color for navigation views.
Value is used in browsers displaying basic help UI. Default is "#FFFFFF"
- productIndex: plug-in ID of a plugin containing prebuilt documentation
index. If present, the index retrieved from the plug-in will be used
as a starting point in creation of documentation index for use by help search.
Default is ""
