Browser window

From within 'lv's Definition and Help menus, a separate browser window can be launched. Its purpose is to provide a hyperlinked document that allows to either

study the online documentation for 'lv' or
read the text descriptions and definitions for the underlying exchange format and its entities.

These are also the two primary modes of operation for this window: either "Help" mode, or "Definition" mode.

The browser window that gets started from the appropriate menus of 'lv's main window has a special context-sensitive behaviour. The fact that a browser window is the context-sensitive one (there can be always at most one) can be determined from the window title: It is enclosed in parenthesis.

Figure 1. Sample of browser window (context-sensitive specimen, in "online documentation" mode)

Browsing the online documentation

In "Help" mode, i.e., when the browser window was activated, or the window's contents was changed, using a "Help" button, a hyperlinked document appears that is divided into several sections. The user can review these as described in the browsing section.

The context-sensitive version has the following additional feature:
If 'lv's text section is in "Logfile" mode, whenever one of the error messages that is listed in the window is selected, the browser window will change its contents to show the text description of the error message from the Messages section. Thus it is possible to see an explanation of the situation the error message refers to, which may be useful in particular if some rarely seen error message is displayed.

Browsing the definition

In "Definition" mode, i.e., when the browser window was activated from the Definition menu of lv's main window, or its contents was changed using the browser window's Index button, the browser window will contain a hyperlinked document which represents the underlying exchange format's description in digital form.

Note that this mode is only possible if the appropriate documentation is available for the current exchange format, which depends on the installation. If no documentation for the particular exchange format is available, the corresponding buttons (as described above) for the activation of this mode are not present.

Note also that the documentation usually contains an index and then the definitions for the most commonly used entities. It is neither a complete documentation, nor is it guaranteed to be up to date. The primary purpose is to provide a quick reference for the most important information instead of forcing the user to dig up a paper document.

The context-sensitive version for this mode has the following additional behaviour:

If you select the definition of a particular entity, all instances of the entity get highlighted in the geometry display.
If you select a particular instance interactively, for example by clicking into the geometry display, or by selecting it in the text section, the browser window will switch to the definition of the underlying entity, provided that this definition is available in digital form.

Thus, the behaviour of this context-sensitive browser window is comparable to the text section's behaviour when it used in "Schema" mode.

Non context-sensitive operation

The interactive browser window (the one that was started from 'lv's main window menu bar, and shows parenthesis around its window title) will change its contents as a consequence of certain user actions (as described above), and it will always show either the online documentation, or the exchange format definition. Thus it is neither possible to study the documentation without sudden interruption if some instance or log file entry is selected in the main window, nor to view online documentation and exchange format description in parallel, nor to review different parts of either online documentation or exchange format description at the same time.

To accommodate for this, it is possible to start an indefinite number of non context-sensitive browser windows. This is done using the Clone button. It will pop up a new browser window, which is operated in the same fashion as the context-sensitive browser window, but has no "link" to 'lv's main window. No selection in the main window will make any of the non context-sensitive browser windows change its contents, and no browsing activity in a non context-sensitive browser window will lead to highlights in the main window. For easy identification, the non context-sensitive browser window(s) do not show their window titles in parenthesis.

Note that when "Dismiss"ing the context-sensitive browser window, the only way to re-activate a context-sensitive browser window is to use the appropriate menu items in 'lv's main window.

Browsing

The browser window operates in a way that is similar to what is commonly expected from browsers. It shows a hyperlinked document, i.e., a fancy mixture of interesting text information, tables, and figures, where some text passages are marked in a special color. When selecting such hyperlinks using the left mouse button, the contents of the window switches to the section of the document the hyperlink refers to.

Up and down arrow keys, as well as a slider, allow to scroll through the text. The right mouse button allows to jump back to the position in text where the last hyperlink was selected.

On top of the browser window, up to six buttons can be used to further control the browser window:

"Recent": Jump back to the position/contents that the browser window showed when the last hyperlink was selected. This button is only selectable if at least one hyperlink was selected. The same action is performed if the right mouse button is pressed.
"Future": After having used "Recent" to jump back to a previous selection, this button allows to go to the newer selection(s) again. This button is only selectable after "Recent" was activated, and only until a new hyperlink is selected.
"Index": This button is only available if there is a description of the current exchange format available in digital form. The browser window's contents will be switched to show the index of definitions for the exchange format (see Browsing the definition above).
"Help": If selected, the browser windows's contents will be switched to show the index of the online documentation for 'lv' (see Browsing the online documentation above).
"Clone": When selected, a new, non-sensitive browser window appears. It will initially show the same contents as the window where the "Clone" button was pressed, but can be used independently from its "parent" window.
"Dismiss": This button allows to close a browser window. Other browser windows are not affected.

Help Index