Obtaining Help in the Editor Pane

Depending on the value of the UseJadeWebHelp parameter in the [JadeHelp] section of the JADE initialization file, help from the editor pane accesses an HTML5 topic on a Web page in your browser or in Adobe Reader at a specific section in a PDF file. (By default, context‑sensitive help is in Web format.)

If you press F1 from the JADE development environment to launch the Adobe Reader and access the appropriate topic in a JADE PDF file using Adobe Reader 7.0 or higher from a slower machine (for example, from an older laptop), JADE can time-out before it has time to load the appropriate document at the required topic after it has launched the Adobe Reader application. Although the Adobe Reader may be launched, you have to repeat the F1 action to enable JADE to open the PDF document itself at the specified hyperlink topic.

You can use the ConnectSleepRetries parameter in the [JadeHelp] section of the JADE initialization file to specify the number of seconds between the specified number of times JADE attempts to retry launching the Adobe Reader and opening a PDF file at the appropriate topic when you press F1 to access context-sensitive help from the JADE development environment. For more details, see "JADE Help Section [JadeHelp]", in your JADE Initialization File Reference.

To access online help in the editor pane

Press F1 when the caret is positioned on a:
- JADE instruction
- System or Window class, property, method, or event
- Primitive type
- Method option

Online help for the current item is then displayed, with the appropriate topic on the Web page in your browser or in the PDF file displayed in the top left corner of the Adobe Reader document pane.

The help text provides the appropriate description, syntax or signature, and often a usage example.

To find details about the item under the caret

Press F11

Details about the current item, including the creation timestamp and patch version of the entity, are then displayed in bubble help. For example, if the caret is positioned on the i variable, bubble help displays the following information.

Class: TestSchema:Person (2051)
Superclass: Object
Access: public
Type: real
Lifetime: all all-subclasses
Volatility: Volatile
Default: persistent
Maps: testschema
Created: 01 January 2019, 13:00:00
Patch Version: 1024

When details of a property that has a mapping method are displayed, press F12 to display a freestanding editor pane containing the mapping method source for that property.

To view information about the cause and solution to a compiler error

Press F1 when a compile error (that is, an error in the range 6000 through 6999) is displayed in JADE development environment status line and the caret is positioned in whitespace in the editor pane (that is, there is no character on either side of the caret).

Online help for the error is then displayed on the Web page in your browser or in the PDF file, providing you with the cause and recommended action for the solution of that compiler error.

This feature applies only to compiler errors. Syntax errors are displayed only in the status line.