The KHelpCenter interface
The KHelpCenter interface consists of two panes of information.
The toolbar and menus are explained further in the section called “The menus and toolbar”.
Documents contain their own navigation tools, enabling you to move either sequentially through a document, using Next, Previous, and Home links, or to move around in a less structured manner, using hyperlinks.
Links can take you to other parts of the same document, or to a different document, and you can use the Back (Left pointing arrow) or Forward (Right pointing arrow) icons on the toolbar to move through the documents you have viewed in this session.
The two panes display the contents of the help system, and the help files themselves, on the left and right respectively.
The Contents pane in KHelpCenter is displayed on the left hand side of the window. As you might expect, you can move the splitter bar, to make sure you can comfortably read the contents of either pane.
The Contents pane is further divided into two tabs, one containing a menu showing all the help information KHelpCenter is aware of, and the other contains the KDE glossary of terms.
The Contents contains the following default entries:
Welcome to KDE - an introduction to the K Desktop Environment.
The KDE Quickstart guide. Contains a tour of the KDE Interface and specific help and tips on how to work smarter with KDE.
The KDE User's manual is an in-depth exploration of KDE, including installation, configuration and customization, and use.
Native KDE application documentation. All KDE applications have documentation in XML format, which are converted to HTML when you view them. This section lists all the KDE applications with a brief description and a link to the full application documentation.
The applications are displayed in a tree structure that echoes the default structure of the menu, making it easy to find the application you are looking for.
UNIX® man pages are the traditional on-line documentation format for UNIX® systems. Most programs on your system will have a man page. In addition, man pages exist for programming functions and file formats.
TeXinfo documentation is used by many GNU applications, including gcc (the C/C++ compiler), emacs, and many others.
Short, task based or informational tutorials.
Frequently asked questions about KDE, and their answers.
Links to KDE on the web, both the official KDE website, and other useful sites.
Information on how to contact KDE developers, and how to join the KDE mailing lists.
How to help, and how to get involved.
Man pages are the standard UNIX® manual pages, and have been in use for many years on many operating systems. They are extremely thorough, and are the very best place to get information about most UNIX® commands and applications. When people say “RTFM”, the Manual they are referring to is very often the man page.
The man pages are not perfect. They tend to be in depth, but also extremely technical, often written by developers, and for developers. In some cases this makes them somewhat unfriendly, if not downright impossible for many users to understand. They are, however, the best source of solid information on most command line applications, and very often the only source.
If you've ever wondered what the number is when people write things like man(1) it means which section of the manual the item is in. You will see KHelpCenter uses the numbers to divide the very many man pages into their own sections, making it easier for you to find the information you're looking for, if you're just browsing.
Also available are the Info pages, intended to be a replacement for the man pages. The maintainer of some applications no longer update the man pages, so if there is both a man page and an info page available, the info page is probably the most recent. Most applications have one or the other though. If the application you are looking for help on is a GNU utility, you will most likely find it has an info page, not a man page.
Info documents are arranged hierarchically with each page called a node. All info documents have a Top node, i.e. the opening page. You can return to the Top of an info document by pressing Top.
& are used to move to the previous/next page at the current level of the hierarchy.
Clicking on a menu item within a document moves you to a lower level in the hierarchy. You may move up the hierarchy by pressing .
Man is treated similarly to info, with the section index being the Top node and each man page on the level below. Man entries are one page long.
The glossary provides a quick reference point, where you can look up the definitions of words that may be unfamiliar to you. These range from KDE specific applications and technologies, through to general UNIX® computing terms.
In the left hand pane you will see a tree view, with two choices: Alphabetically or By topic. Both contain the same entries, sorted differently, to allow you to quickly find the item of interest.
Navigate down the tree views to the left, and items you select will be displayed on the right.
KHelpCenter has a very minimal interface, allowing you to concentrate on getting help rather than learning how to use the help browser.
The icons available to you in the toolbar are as follows:
Toolbar Icons
Go to the previous page you viewed.
Go forward one page. This icon is only active if you have already used the Back icon.
Print the contents of the currently visible page.
Find a word or words within the currently visible page.
Increase the size of the text in the viewer pane.
Decrease the size of the text in the viewer pane. This icon is only enabled if you have previously enlarged the text.
The menus contain the following entries:
Print the contents of the currently visible page.
Close and exit KHelpCenter
Select all the text in the current page.
Find a word or words in the currently visible page.
View the HTML source of the page you are currently viewing.
Change the encoding of the current page. Normally, the default setting of should be sufficient, but if you are having problems viewing pages written in languages other than English, you may need to choose a specific encoding in this menu.
Go back to the previous page you were viewing.
If you have previously moved back with the back icon or menu entry, you can work your way forward again with this menu entry.
At the bottom of the menu, you will find a history list, of the last few pages you have looked at. Selecting one will take you directly back to that page.
