README
1Devhelp
2===========
3
4.. image:: http://img21.imageshack.us/img21/7087/devhelpsmall.png
5 :width: 400
6 :alt: image of a plugin in work (if applicable)
7 :align: right
8 :target: http://img406.imageshack.us/img406/5833/devhelp.png
9
10.. contents::
11
12About
13-----
14
15This plugin embeds an API documentation browser and search functionality
16directly into Geany's user interface. In case you didn't know, Devhelp is an
17API documentation browser mainly aimed at GNOME-related libraries, although
18there are Devhelp books for a wide range of library APIs. Check your package
19manager and/or Google and you should have no trouble finding books that can
20be viewed with Devhelp.
21
22Features
23--------
24
25* search in Devhelp
26* search in 'man' pages
27* search in Google Code Search
28
29Usage
30-----
31
32*User Interface Changes*
33^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
34
35When you load the plugin, two things are added to Geany's UI. The first is a
36new tab labeled 'Devhelp' in the Sidebar notebook. Inside this notebook page
37are two sub-tabs; Contents and Search. Contents lets you browse all of the
38books at once and see their table of contents in a tree view. Search, not
39surprisingly lets you search all of the books for a search term. The second
40UI element that gets added to Geany is the 'Documentation' tab. This new tab
41is added in the main area, where it will be next to a new tab called 'Code'
42which now holds the existing documents tabs.
43
44*Keybindings*
45^^^^^^^^^^^^^
46
47There are several keybindings available when the Devhelp plugin is loaded to
48make it faster to access documentation. The following keybindings are
49available:
50
51*Toggle sidebar contents tab*
52+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
53
54Activates the "Contents" tab under the Devhelp sidebar tab. The previous tab
55will be saved so that when this keybinding is fired again, the previous tab
56selection will be activated.
57
58*Toggle sidebar search tab*
59+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
60
61Just like the previous keybinding but with the "Search" tab.
62
63*Toggle documentation tab*
64++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
65
66Flips between the main documentation viewer and your current code.
67
68*Search for current tag in Devhelp*
69+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
70
71While coding in the editor, the current tag, that is, the word that is
72nearest to the cursor that looks like a programming symbol, or the current
73selection, can be search for quickly by activating this keybinding. Once
74activated, the Devhelp books repository on your system will be searched for
75the current tag and if an exact match is found, it will be loaded into the
76documentation view and the view will be made active.
77
78*Search for current tag in Manual pages*
79++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
80
81Like the previous keybinding, but rather than searching Devhelp books, the
82systems manual pages will be searched, assuming a `man` program is available.
83The manual page sections will be searched in the order most likely to yield
84manual pages relevant to programming. For example, a search for `mkdir` should
85locate the `mkdir()` function from section 2 before it finds the `mkdir` shell
86utility in section 1.
87
88*Search for current tag in Google Code Search*
89++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
90Like the previous two keybindings, except that a search will be performed
91online using Google's Code Search service. The search results page will be
92displayed in the documentation view.
93
94*Context Menu*
95^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
96
97There's also another way to invoke a search for the current symbol for our
98mouse loving friends out there. If you right click on the current document,
99on a tag/symbol you want help on, the context menu that appears will have an
100menu called `Search for "Foo" documentation in`. Under this menu are 3 items
101for the searches discussed under the `Keybindings` section which, when
102activated, will perform the same searches as described above.
103
104Requirements
105------------
106
107* GTK >= 2.16
108* libwebkitgtk >= 1.1.18
109* libdevhelp 1.0 >= 2.30.1 or libdevhelp 2.0 >= 2.32.0
110
111Contact developers
112------------------
113
114You can email me at <matt@geany.org>, or find me on the #geany IRC channel on FreeNode, with the nickname 'codebrainz'.
115
