Eclipse Help
The 2008.2 release of the ePublisher Platform includes the Eclipse Help output format. For the most part, this format works similarly to the existing ePublisher output formats. There are a couple of options which are unqiue to Eclipse Help. This article outlines these items.
Eclipse Help ID Prefix Format Setting
The Eclipse Help ID is comprised of the Eclipse Help ID Prefix, and a given ePublisher Group name. The purpose of the Eclipse Help ID Prefix Format Setting is to allow the user control over what the resulting jar file, as well as a number of other similar settings, will be called. By default, the Eclipse Help ID Prefix is set to:
com.webworks.eclipsehelp
Eclipse Help Vendor Format Setting
The Eclipse Help Vendor Format Setting is used for setting the Vendor parameter in the Eclipse Help Content Plugin's Mansifest file.
Topic Description Marker Behavior
Support for context-sensitive topics is available in Eclipse Help. The facilities for implementing context-sensitive topics are the same as they are for other ePublisher Formats, namely, topic markers in the document source. Additionally, Eclipse Help's support for context-sensitive topics allows users to provide a description when defining a given context. The markup for Eclipse Help's context-sensitive topics is listed below:
<context id="edit_tropical_rain_forests">
<description>This is a description of how to edit tropical rain forests, as if tropical rain forests were editable.</description>
<topic label="Tropical Rain Forests" href="/com.webworks.eclipsehelp.ecology/resource.1.2.html" />
<topic label="Tropical Rain Forests" href="/com.webworks.eclipsehelp.ecology/Cheese/resource.4.2.html" />
</context>The Topic Description Marker Behavior allows a user to take advantage of this facility. To use this behavior, insert a marker after a topic marker in a paragraph. When the Eclipse Help format generates output, a check is made for a marker following the topic marker which has the Topic Description behavior. If one is found, the value of this marker is used for the description field of the context. If one is not found, the title of the page is used for the description field of the context.
Context Plugin Marker Behavior
Eclipse Help allows users to define that a given content plugin may be used for other Eclipse Help plugins. The Context Plugin Marker Behavior provides ePublsiher users the ability to associate the content of a given Group with one or more Eclipse Plugins.
To use this behavior, insert one or more of this type of marker into the content for a given Group and map the marker to the Context Plugin Marker Behavior. When output is generated using the Eclipse Help format, the plugin.xml file, which defines the extension points for the Eclipse Help content plugin, will include the IDs of the other Eclipse plugins to which this content plugin applies. For example, consider the following fragment from a Group's plugin.xml file:
<!-- Contexts -->
<!-- -->
<extension point="org.eclipse.help.contexts">
<contexts file="contexts.xml" plugin="com.webworks.ecology.ui" />
</extension>
<extension point="org.eclipse.help.contexts">
<contexts file="contexts.xml" plugin="com.webworks.eclipsehelp.ui" />
</extension>This fragment indicates that the current content plugin provides help content which is used by the Eclipse Plugins: com.webworks.ecology.ui and com.webworks.eclipsehelp.ui.