This is quite simple to do, once you have made the help file in the first place! You can go in at the top level (the main contents page) with a simple utility such as #.Win.Help (in the Causeway workspace):

Win.Help '\apl\causeway\causeway.hlp'
6130000 Win.Help '\apl\causeway\Causeway'
'Geometry' Win.Help '\apl\causeway\Causeway'

... the second example goes in using a ‘context number’ to the help page for the Causeway FM class – I happen to know that the help numbers are computed from their class mnemonic in this way! Finally, you can use a keyword to get to a list of all the topics where the keyword occurs; this will go straight to the topic if the keyword has only one hit in the file.

Typically you would add a <Help> button to your dialogue definition, and use a call to Win.Help passing a context number on the left to go directly to the correct topic. You will also find that many text-editing classes offer a ‘Help Request’ event which is triggered for the field when the user presses <F1> in the field. This allows you to give field-level help if you really need this level of detail – in practice it may be better to use the field ‘Hint’ and ‘Tip’ properties here.

To add <F1> help to a form without cluttering it with an extra <Help> button, you could add a ‘Hidden’ control, set its Accelerator property to F1 and simply call Win.Help from its normal Select event with the appropriate number.

N.B. (Windows 95 users only) – if the help file has been compiled with the new ‘tree of books’ style of interface you should call #.Win.Help with ¯1 on the left to access the contents page.