StrongHelp Development

This skill provides guidance for developing StrongHelp manuals, which are the standard hypertext help format for RISC OS.

Quick Start

1. List the container contents first: riscos-shextract --list <manual_file,3d6>
2. Extract a manual for inspection or editing: riscos-shextract --extract-dir <dirname> <manual_file,3d6>
3. Read the extracted page files, not the packed ,3d6 bytes directly.
4. Build a manual: riscos-strongcopy -o <manual_file,3d6> <directory>

Developing Pages

Every StrongHelp page is a text file where the first line is the title. Use #Parent on every page to ensure navigation works correctly.

Workflow

1. List the manual: Use riscos-shextract --list to see the real page names and directories before making assumptions about the structure.
2. Extract the manual: Use riscos-shextract --extract-dir and inspect the extracted files in the filesystem.
3. Identify the target page: Find the existing page or determine the filename for a new one.
4. Apply Syntax: Use the syntax guide in references/syntax.md for formatting and links.
5. Organize Structure: Use the structure guide in references/structure.md for directory organization and special files.
6. Verify Links: Ensure all links point to valid page names or files.
7. Build: Use riscos-strongcopy to package the directory into a .3d6 manual file.

Tools

• riscos-shextract: Extracts contents from a StrongHelp .3d6 container.
• riscos-strongcopy: Packages a directory into a StrongHelp .3d6 container.

Best Practices

• Inspection: Do not treat a packed ,3d6 manual as plain text and do not run unrelated decoders over it. Extract it first, then read the extracted page files.
• Navigation: Include #Parent !Root (or the appropriate parent) on every page.
• Columns: Use TAB for alignment instead of spaces to ensure correct rendering.
• Formatting: Use #fCode for examples and #H1 for main headers.
• Organization: For manuals with many pages, use prefix directories (e.g., Wimp_) or first-letter ranges (e.g., [a-z]).
• Filenames: Remember that StrongHelp uses special filenames for redirection (e.g., OLD>NEW).