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Accessing the Help Pages

  • Help Options
  • The Manual
  • Release Notes
  • Navigating release notes
  • Searching release notes
  • Your Web Site

    • Help Options

     There are three help system available:

    Point Help
    Along the bottom of the screen there is a one line help message that will give a little more detail about the menu option you are on.

    The majority of the prompts now have a help line associated with them, this should enable you to identify what you are being asked and what the option does.

    For the experienced user the help option can be switched off via Access Permission 109. This can be set via the User-Info option at the main menu (=).

    The colour of the help text is controlled by Colour event 227.

    If there is a manual page associated with the menu you are on the phrase 'F1=Help' will appear on the bottom right of the screen to remind you there is more information available.

    F1 Function Key
    If F1 is pressed at any of the menu's a selection box will be displayed giving you the relevant chapters relating to the menu you are on.

    If one of the chapters with the selection box is picked (or if there is only one chapter relevant) the chapter will be displayed on the screen allowing you to read it. If you are using a Windows PC with a suitable emulator then Microsoft Internet Explorer will be called automatically.

    Help Menu
    Rather than read the individual chapters you can be selecting the The Manual option on the Help/Henston menu option jump to the main documentation index. If you have a Windows PC then the graphical browser (IE4) will be used otherwise a character based browser will be used.

    From the 'Documentation' pages you can access the full manual, all the help chapters with index and other documentation relating to public domain software (e.g. elm, squid) and Cross Updating help.

    The other way to select the documentation pages is from ANY networked PC start up a browser (Netscape, IE3, IE4) and enter as the URL http://name-of-unix-box where you replace the 'name-of-unix-box' with the name of your Unix server. - This is by far the easiest method to use.

    Release Notes

     Whenever any changes are made to the system these are documented in 'Release Notes'. These only cover what has changed, so rather that plow through the full manual for the differences just refer to these.

    This is done from the Help/Henston option on the main menu, when selected the system will scan for any installed release notes. The subjects will be displayed in a selection box, highlight as required and press RETURN, this will take you into the document. Navigating and printing is covered in the next section.

    Navigating release notes

     Once the release notes or help pages is displayed on the screen you can scroll it as follows:

  • Up/Down arrows Move a line at a time
  • Page Up/Down A page at a time
  • Home Go to beginning of document
  • End Go to the end of the document
  • <ESC> Takes you back to the previous menu

    • There is a menu available if the slash (/) key is pressed that appears at the top of the screen, the available options are:

    Search
    Search for text
    Index
    This displays in a selection box all the sub- headings within the document. Selecting a heading will take you directly to it. There will be a slight delay the first time the index option is selected.
    Next
    This will find the next occurrence of the last search
    Goto
    This will jump to a specified line.
    URL
    Scan the current document for any web links and call a browser (lynx) to access the appropriate web page. See the FAQ section for details on how to change this.
    HTML
    Converts the document into a web page and calls your default web browser.
    Print
    With this option you can print either the page you are currently on (Screen) or the whole document (Document). The Eject option is for those of you with laser printers to eject the page if required.

    To exit from the menu, use <Q>uit, this will return you to the document. Pressing <ESC> will return you to the previous menu.

    Searching release notes

     The release notes can be searched for specific text. This is done by access the menu option 'Help' and then once the selection box has been displayed pick the search option.

    You will be asked to enter the text you want to find, the system will scan all the relevant documents for it. The selection box will re displayed showing you the line in which the text/phrase was found. Selecting the line as required and the document will be displayed, positioned at the line selected.

    NOTE: Only the first 100 occurrences of the text will be shown, the search is case-insensitive.

    To search the manual please use the search option on the main index page.

    Your Web Site

    Your Unix machine is a complete web server, and you can if you wish add you own pages and content. The option 'Your Web Server' will automatically load up your 'Home Page' - this is /u/www. Any material you store here will be available to other users.

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