§ 14.17 - The Help System in General

F/x's operator help system is context sensitive. However, because many Windows dialogs "eat" user keystrokes, in order for the context sensitivity to operate, an image window needs to be open and active (the title bar should be the selected color.)

As long as that condition is met, pointing at operator button in the toolbar and pressing F1 will open the help to the correct page for that operator.

§ 14.18 - The Help Menu

§ 14.18.1 - About

This selection will display the current version number of the software and the Technical Support email address. You must be registered to receive technical support.

§ 14.18.2 - Getting Started

This will access the Getting Started section of the manual. This section contains a brief tutorial to introduce new users to the software.

§ 14.18.3 - On Layers

This will access the Layers section of the manual. This section contains information on how to work with layers and basic layer concepts.

§ 14.18.4 - Display Quality

This will access the Display Quality section of the manual. This section contains information on displays and display quality issues.

§ 14.18.5 - Keystrokes

This will access the help section that contains a complete listing of all available program keystrokes.

§ 14.18.6 - Learn About Updates (via Internet)

This will access our online update database. This option automatically submits the version and revision number for your copy of F/x. This allows us to narrow down the list to updates you may need. No other information is sent to Black Belt Systems through this submission.

§ 14.18.7 - Technical Support (via Internet)

Technical support is no longer available for F/x.

§ 14.18.8 - Manual

This will access the main Table of Contents for the F/x documentation.

§ 14.18.9 - Help Location

This allows you to select any location on your computer (or network) for the F/x HTML help files. The path should not have a trailing slash.

Here is an example network path from our own LAN, using standard Windows networking (we use the Microsoft® client, TCP/IP protocol, over a 100 mbs ethernet... the help runs like lightning):

This path references a Dell Windows98 computer on our local area network that has the name "2blkbelt". A drive on that machine is shared as "p450_c", and we have a directory there named "html_docs" which is where the documentation is located. The path does not have a trailing slash. Inside this directory on the LAN are our local user notes, as well as the pics and anims directories.

This is a very sensible way to keep the help on a network; since the help is over thirty megabytes in size, multiple copies do use a considerable amount of resources, even in this day of reasonably priced mass storage.

Help Location Dialog

Help Location Browser

Tip of The Day Dialog

§ 14.18.10 - Visit Tip of The Day

This allows you to bring up the tip of the day dialog manually. The Tip of The Day dialog will come up automatically when the program starts, unless you have used the File / Preferences command to disable this.

§ 14.18.11 - Tip of The Day Location

 Warning: If you elect to use the documentation from the CDROM, you will not be able to take advantage of the User Notes feature because the CDROM cannot be written to, hence the user notes files cannot be stored there.

§ 14.18.12 - System Information and memory Info

This panel contains information about your system and current memory usage. The system info includes your CPU type, Math Co-processor, Windows mode information, and the number of processors. The memory information tells you the amount of total memory, free memory, and the largest free block of memory.

 Note: Under some versions of Windows, this dialog may return obviously incorrect information about the system state. You'll spot errors such as negative free memory and similarly unusual readings. This is due to unpredictable return values from system functions that Microsoft® provides, not due to any errors in F/x. Unfortunately, the fabled compatability between the NT and standard Windows programming API's is just that - a fable. This is not an issue that we can (or should!) address. If you experience these errors, please write to Microsoft®. We're quite tired of doing it ourselves. Someday, perhaps, they'll fix this problem if enough people complain.

System Information Dialog