New Style Versus Old Style Help
- Updated2023-02-21
- 2 minute(s) read
LabWindows/CVI has two styles of online help for instrument drivers: new (recommended) and old (LabWindows DOS). The old help style maintains compatibility with help created in LabWindows version 2.3 or earlier. This help style uses the DOS/IBM character set so it can display special extended ASCII characters used by older instrument drivers.
The new help style uses the standard Windows character set and automatically displays the control help with control name and data type information. You also can include HTML tags in the help.
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Note You can use HTML tags, but you must enclose the tags in <HTML><BODY></BODY></HTML> tags. To specify a style sheet, move the style sheet to the same directory as your .fp file and use %FP_PATH% in the HTML link element, as shown in the following example: <link rel="stylesheet" href="%fp_path%/stylesheet.css" type="text/css"> |
There is also a difference in the type of help that can be displayed. In either new or old style help, you can view instrument help, function class help, and control help. However, the help for functions appears differently between the two styles. This difference is noticeable only when you have multiple function panels on a single Function Panel window. In the new style, you can access function help for each function panel. In the old style, you can access the Function Panel window help, which describes all the functions contained in that Function Panel window.
National Instruments recommends that you use the new help style for all help for instrument drivers that you create in LabWindows/CVI. Most of the discussion in this section assumes you are using the new style help.