Help for HV - A HTML Viewer for the HP100/200LX Palmtop Computers
HV is an application that lets you browse through HTML (HyperText Markup
Language) files. HTML provides a simple but very powerful means for representing
hypertexts, i.e. texts with links to other parts of the text or to other
documents.
The help file you are currently reading is such a HTML text.
It explains how to move around in HV how to
configure HV and how indexing in
HV works.
Press the space bar to see more!
- F1 brings you to this help document
- Press SPACE, the '+' key or PgDn
to move downward one screen
- Press PgUp, Backspace or the '-' key
to move upward one screen
- Press Ctrl-down to move down one line and Ctrl-Up to
move up one line.
- Home brings you to the top of the current document and
End to the last page
- F6 brings you back to last document you have seen before the
current one
- ESC behaves the same as F6, except that it quits HV
if there is no previous document.
- If you went back using F6, you can press F7 to go forward
to the document you left with F6
- F2 brings you to your home page (the first page you see when
you start HV)
- Rectangles show you that there is a link. If you press ENTER,
you will be taken to the place, the filled rectangle is linked to.
- By pressing the left and right arrow keys,
you can move around the filled rectangle and, thus, select a link.
- Pressing TAB and Shift-TAB or the up and down
arrow keys has the same effect as pressing the left and right
arrow keys, unless the first or last link on the current
page is selected. If the last link is selected and you press TAB
or the down arrow key,
the next page will be displayed. If the first link is selected and you
press Shift-TAB or the up arrow key,
the preceding page will be displayed.
- If you want to see a specific document, press F9 and enter
its filename.
- F8 will show you the name of the current file and the file that
will be opened when you press ENTER (i.e. the current link).
- F4 will let you search for a word in the current document
- F3 will start Memo and let you edit the source of the current
document.
- F5 will show you the hot list. The hot list is
a list of documents you often use. By using the down arrow key, you
can choose between the documents you added to the hot list. You can
add the current document to the hot list by pressing the "Add Current"
button (move to it using the TAB key). You can also select a list item
and press the "Delete" button. In this case, the selected item will be
removed from the hot list. The hot list is kept as a file named HV.HOT in
the HV main directory.
- If you want to exit HV, press F10
The configuration file
You can configure HV for your needs by modifying the file
HV.CFG, which
must reside in the same directory as HV. The configuration file
is split up in so called sections. Each section starts with a section
name on a single line enclosed by '[' and ']'. Lines starting with ';'
are comments.
The [system]
section
The system section contains some general settings for HV:
- Root=<path>
specifies where you have installed HV. You only need this if you
installed the files belonging to HV in a different directory than
HV.EXE.
- Editor=<path to editor>
specifies which editor should be used for editing HTML files. If you
do not specify an editor, HV will use MEMO.
- Retain=Yes
If you include this line, HV will store the current position in the file
C:\_DAT\HV.ENV so that you will be taken to the same document and the
same position if you leave HV and start it again. If you don't include
the line, HV will always start up with the same document.
- HistorySize=<size>
If Retain is set to "Yes", HistorySize specifies how many items
of the history (visited documents) will be saved across sessions. This
value defaults to 1, i.e. only the last position is saved.
- NoLatin=Yes
If this is set, the IBM character set (code page 850) is used instead
of ISO Latin 1. ISO Latin 1 is used for all the 8-bit documents in HTML
format that you will find on the world wide web.
- IndexDir=<directory>
This lets you specify a directory in which all index files should be
placed. If it is not specified, all index files are placed in the same
directory in which the viewed document resides.
- NoGIFs=Yes
If you specify this, inline GIF images are not displayed, but replaced
by a link to the image.
The [Fonts]
section
This section lets you specify the fonts to be used by HV:
- FontPath=<directory name>
If the PAL font files are not in the same directory as the other HV
files, include this line.
- Normal=<font name>
specifies the font to be used for normal text. <font name> may
be the name of a PAL font file or one of the following words:
Small
, Medium
or Large
. These
keywords specify the built-in fonts of the palmtop.
- Bold=<font name>
specifies the font to be used for boldface and emphasized text.
- Italic=<font name>
specifies the font to be used for italic text.
- Fixed=<font name>
specifies the font to be used for monospaced text.
- H1=<font name>
specifies the font to be used for level 1 headings.
- H2=<font name>
specifies the font to be used for level 2 headings.
- H3=<font name>
specifies the font to be used for level 3 headings.
- H4=<font name>
specifies the font to be used for level 4, 5 and 6 headings.
The [Docs]
section
This section lets you specify special documents:
- Home=<document name>
This line lets you specify the path and file name of the document to
by displayed when you press the F4 (Home) key.
This section specifies what to do if a non-HTML file is encountered. The
action depends on the file extension. Example:
GIF=C:\BIN\SHOWGIF.EXE %s
If a file with a GIF extension is encountered, the program C:\BIN\SHOWGIF.EXE
is started with the file name (%s is replaced by the file name) as an
argument. Note that the specified extension has to be upper case. You can
specify as many extensions as you like. ATTENTION: while running an external
viewer, HV stll remains in memory and needs about 110k. The external viewer
can only be started if there is enough remaining memory.
Indexing
When loading a document for the first time, an index is generated. Using
an index improves access speed significantly, especially for large documents.
The index is placed into two files, so that it has to be computed only once,
and if you access a document for a second time, the index is readily available.
The index files have the same name as the HTML document but have an .PAG and
a .LAB extension.
If, for any reason, one of these index files got corrupted, you can rebuild
them any time by choosing Rebuild Index from the File menu.
Indexing takes place in the background. The only thing you will notice while
indexing is that the total page count (upper right corner of the screen) will
be in parentheses and count up. While indexing, you can still do most operations.
Thus, you don't have to wait until indexing is completed.
Press ESC now, to leave help (and return to the previous document).
Andreas Garzotto, June 1995