HBassistant readme

Introduction
------------
HBassistant is an interactive HotBasic manual providing an
easy look-up for all those HotBasic keywords.

For the form and compiler objects, all the object members
and properties are listed for each object. Clicking on an
object member or property will give a description for that
item.

HBassistant also provides many code examples to help the
HotBasic coder.

HBassistant is a zero installation program that does not
make any changes to your registry.

Runs on all 32-bit Windows 95, 98, Me, NT, 2000, XP and 
Vista systems. And should run without problems on 64-bit
Windows systems as well.


Setting up HBassistant on your PC.
----------------------------------
HBassistant has a 'self contained' database, requiring no
external files for it to operate. All that is required is
to copy HBassistant.exe to any convienent folder on your PC.

To make HBassistant easily accessible, I suggest that a
shortcut to the desktop is made. You are now ready to go!

HBassistant comes with selected code examples from the 
HotBasic group. The examples can be viewed by clicking
the 'Code Examples' radio button.

If you have the auto download button depressed (on), HBassistant
will check the server after every 10 days to check if HBassistant
has been updated. If the server has a more up to-date version
than the one you are using, it will be downloaded.  If you auto 
downloaded using HBassistant at least v2.20, when you next exit
the application, HBassistant will start the auto install process 
- so the newly downloaded file will be unzipped for you!

Should the download fail for any reason, HBassistant will not make 
any more checks on the same day - but will retry another day if 
you are using HBassistant.

Alternatively, you may switch auto download off, and periodcally
click the 'Download HBassistant' button to check for an updated
version.

If you prefer not to use the auto-download/install feature, new
versions as they become available can of course be manually
downloaded from my site and unzipped with your favourite unzip
program. 

If you are using Custom Command Optimizer, the help files supplied
with the optimizer are in HBassistant format. Provided you have
the help files in your include\CC folder within your HotBasic setup
you will be able to look up the optimizer's commands by going to
the User section in HBassistant. There is no setting up to in
HBassistant.

You can now make your own help files to use with HBassistant,
which will appear in the code examples/user files categories. 
Your own help files may contain your favourite code snippets or 
useful functions, to copy and paste into your program from 
HBassistant. If you would like to do this read on ...

Making your own HBassistant help files.
---------------------------------------
User help files (for HBassistant) are plain text files (.txt),
the file name MUST begin with 'USER' or 'CODE' so that 
HBassistant knows that the file is a user file.

If the file name begins with USER HBassistant will put the file
in the User File category, whereas if the filename begins with
CODE, then it will be put in the Code Examples category.

Other than this, you can use any file name you like. 
e.g. USERNotes.txt or USERCode.txt, or CODEsnippets.txt

User help files are written in a text editor e.g. NotePad, or
Minitext Editor, which is available from 
http://www.philipbister.ukonline.co.uk/ 

Once you have a user help file, it is stored in the same folder
as HBassistant.

HBassistant uses a script language for all it's data files, so
your own user help files will have to be written in the script
language as well - but it's only a simple script language.
Each help text block section in your User file is to consist of a
heading and a #end like this:

#My help
 This is my help text
#end

Note that all headings must be preceded with a hash # symbol.
So, My help will be displayed in the list box, and 'This is my
help text' will be displayed in the rich edit window when My help
is clicked on.

At it's simplest level, that's all you need to know to build your
very own HBassistant help files.

'''''
HBassistant's script language does consist of several other keywords.
Each keyword MUST be on a line by itself, and if you want blank lines
in your text, you need to show the line in your editor. A script
keyword DOES NOT equal a blank line. Always include the hash # symbol
before a keyword without a space after it.

#code         Displays the code that follows in HotBasic colors.
#/code        Code block ends (Not needed if used immediately before #end)

#indent       Retain leading spaces to make an indent.
#/indent      Switch off #indent (not need if used immediately before #end)

#notrim       Does not left-trim (leading spaces)

#/text-colour Switches off text colouring.

#wordbreak    Turns wordbreak on
#/wordbreak   Turns wordbreak off
