Defining text data for GUI elements

For providing extended help information for users, the ODE designer supports several text fields with different purposes. Most text fields are optional, except Text Definition/Usage Hintes/Title, which defines the GUI element label or title.

In order to edit text data, the Text Definitions tab, which is provided for many GUI resource forms that require or support text definitions, has to be activated.

Text definitions may be defined as GUI text definitions, which contain information specific for the GUI context. GUI text definitions can be accessed when activating the Text tab on bottom of text definitions. GUI text definitions should provide information only, which provides usage hints or more detailed explanation about the control and its behavior. Usually, short help is by the tool tip text, which will be enabled when moving the mouse over a control.

Contend information may be provided via the Description tab on bottom of text definitions. Content information usually defines, what kind of data is displayed in the control. Content descriptions are, not only, available for GUI elements displaying data, but also for actions (buttons, menu items etc.) and other GUI elements. In this cases, the content description defines the concept behind the GUI element without referring to details explaining the usage of the element.

All text definitions are multilingual and may be provided in any number of languages. Alternative languages might be selected from the Language drop list. After changing language selection, empty text fields are displayed or the text already entered in the new language will be displayed.

Text definitions are provided for several GUI resources as windows, controls, event actions (menu items, buttons, short cuts). In some cases, text definitions support alignment and size options.

Text information defined for GUI elements are displayed on different occasions. While labels or titles are, usually, always visible, tool tips will be displayed, when the mouse stays over a control or action element, but also in the status bar when being defined. Content help will be displayed on specific user's request (usually by pressing Ctrl+Shift+F1 or moving the content help symbol to the GUI element). Help is also displayed on user's request (usually by pressing F1). Help provides exhaustive information for the GUI element, which is composed from different text sources. When generating help pages for a control or action elements in an application, the help page contains following sections:

• Usage hints - provided from Text definitions of field/window or control describing how to use the control. Field or window text definition are used prior to field control text definitions; or text data provided for region/column field or control definition
• Content definition - the content definition describes the content or concept of the GUI element. Content definition is taken from the Description provided for the GUI element. For data elements (GUI elements displaying data), this might also be the definition of the property referenced in the data source.

In order to arrange label text properly, label position might be defined as described in data type documentation for ADK_LabelPosition (Label position).