# 6.4. Using the Documentation Browser

The documentation browser allows quick and easy access to all manuals and documentations that are provided with KDevelop or generated automatically, including online-documentation for the KDE-libraries and your project documentation. Plus, the Documentation Tree in the tree-view lets you customize a special "Others" folder that contains all individually added documentation.

## 6.4.1. Requirements

To make use of all features of the Helpbrowser , you should have KDoc and glimpse installed. KDoc will generate all kind of online class-documentation for the KDE-libraries during the setup process, but can also invoked by option in the KDevelop Setup. For the generation of an API (Application Programming Interface) Documentation for your project's classes , KDoc is also used and called by the Project-menu, entry "Make API -Doc". This will process all current header files of the project plus the addition of a cross-reference to the Qt and KDE-libraries if those are available in the Helpbrowser . For the generation of the project handbooks, you should have KSgml2Html (provided with the KDE-SDK ) and, as a minimum, SGML -tools installed on your system. To extend and change your project's online-documentation, you have to edit the documentation file for your project by selecting it in the RFV . After saving your changes, call "Make User-Manual" from the Project-menu. In case SGML tools detect formatting errors , those will be displayed in the output window allow you to find the error line directly. The program "glimpse " is used to create a personal search-index for your documentation automatically. The index is generally build during the installation process, but can also be build with the KDevelop Setup dialog. For a description of the provided search functions see Using the Searchindex.

## 6.4.2. Provided Documentation

The KDevelop IDE comes with two sets of online-documentation, which can be accessed either via the Help-menu or by the Doc-tree in the Tree-View in the KDevelop folder. The first book provided is this online-handbook containing all information you need towards installation, configuration, available functionality and introduction to application development. The second book is The KDevelop Programming Handbook in it's first edition. The programming handbook covers most questions related to the creation and extension of projects that work with KDevelop. By tutorials the user gets an introduction to the rich facilities that applications created with the Qt- and/or KDE-libraries have to offer as well as given a guideline for ensuring KDE -compliance, which covers the same instructions given on the Internet site at \|\|. However, the programming handbook cannot replace any additional documentation available in printed or electronic form about the C++ programming language as well as about the usage of the Qt-library in certain terms.

The C/C++-Reference used with KDevelop is currently only available on the KDevelop homepage at \|\|. On distributions the reference may be included, see your distribution installation program index for more information. It can be installed easily by downloading and copying the sourcefile to the main KDE-directory ($KDEDIR). There, you have to untar it as root with `tar zxvf c&_;c++&_;reference.tar.gz`, the reference will then be copied the documentation directory of KDevelop. For uninstalling the reference documentation you just have to delete the "reference" folder under ($KDEDIR)/share/doc/HTML/default/kdevelop/reference.

The Qt/KDE-libraries documentation folder allows direct access to the HTML -online documentation of your copy of the Qt-library. The path to the library documentation is usually automatically detected by the KDevelop installation program, but can be set manually in the KDevelop Setup dialog. Also, all available documentation for the KDE-libraries are listed in order of the library name, so if you would use classes of a certain library it is easy to determine the library type to be added to the Linker settings in the project. Mind that the whole KDE-Library documentation is only accessible when generated by KDoc - so this program, included in the KDE-SDK , has to be installed before the documentation can be generated. As the installation program of KDevelop does this automatically, it should be installed before running the KDevelop Setup. If this is not the case and the documentation cannot be build, you are able to create it afterwards at any time with the KDevelop Setup dialog.

The documentation tree also contains the "Others" folder which is intended to contain all personally customized documentation as described below. Finally, the Doc-Tree allows access to the API and the Manual for your current project.

## 6.4.3. Adding Documentation to the Helpbrowser

To customize your Helpbrowser , open the Tree-View and select the "DOC " Tabulator. You will see an opened tree containing four folders. The "Others" folder is, by default, empty. On a right mousebutton click over this folder, a context menu opens that has an entry "Add Entry". Select this to open the Add Entry dialog where you have to enter two values: the upper one for the name that will be displayed for the documentation within the Doc-tree, and, below that, a file-entry line. Here, you have to enter the path and filename to the start page that will be opened by the selection of the entry later. You can enter the path and filename directly or by selection of the pushbutton on the right to open a file-chooser dialog. This allows a quick browsing on your system to the path for your start page. Mind that only HTML -documentation can be selected, so only HTML files are allowed to choose. Selecting OK will add the entry to the Doc-tree and is available directly.

## 6.4.4. Using the Searchindex

KDevelop includes a set of functions to help you search information within HTML documentation. To use these features, your system needs to have the program "glimpse ", a free database generator, installed, which creates the search index and executes searches within the documentation. To set up the index, see KDevelop Setup. The index is also automatically generated during the installation program.

The search functions are available through several ways which you can choose from:

1. in the editor , select the text you want to have help on or place the cursor in the word that you want to look for. Then press the right mouse button and select look up: "expression" This can also be done by selecting "Search Marked Text" from the Help-menu, the shortcut key F2 or by selecting the Search icon from the toolbar.

2. in the Documentation browser select the text you want to look up and press the right mouse button, select look up:"expression" or select "Search Marked Text" or the search icon as above.

3. if you want to search for a specific keyword, select "Search for Help on..." in the Help-menu or select the "Search for Help on..." icon from the toolbar, opening a search dialog where you can enter the expression you want to get information for.

Direct access to specific documentation is given by selecting the according icon in the "DOC " -tree-view or by the Help-menu entries.

The Helpbrowser also offers support for grep to search for a selection within your current project, e.g you've opened the documentation page for the `KTMainWindow` class (KDEUI library) and you want to know where in your code `KTMainWindow` appears. Mark `KTMainWindow` and either select "Grep: KTMainWindow" or press Shift+F2. The "Search in Files" dialog opens with the results about your grep search directly. Then you can choose an result line to jump to the according sourcecode.