Using the Help Mode

Qt Creator comes fully integrated with Qt documentation and examples using the Qt Help plugin.

• To view documentation, switch to Help mode.
• To view context sensitive help on a Qt class or function as a tooltip, move the mouse cursor over the class or function. If help is not available, the tooltip displays type information for the symbol.
• To display the full help on a Qt class or function, press F1. The documentation is displayed in a pane next to the code editor, or, if there is not enough vertical space, in the fullscreen Help mode.
• To select and configure how the documentation is displayed in the Help mode, select Tools > Options > Help.

The following image displays the Search pane in the Help mode.

The following image displays the context sensitive help in the Edit mode.

Viewing Function Tooltips

To hide function tooltips by default, select Tools > Options > Text Editor > Show help tooltips > On Shift+Mouseover. You can still view the tooltips by pressing and holding down the Shift key.

To use a keyboard shortcut for viewing help tooltips, select Using keyboard shortcut (Alt).

Finding Information in Qt Documentation

Qt Creator, Qt SDK and other Qt deliverables contain documentation as .qch files. All the documentation is accessible in the Help mode.

To find information in the documentation, select:

• Bookmarks to view a list of pages on which you have added bookmarks.
• Contents to see all the documentation installed on the development PC and to browse the documentation contents.
• Index to find information based on a list of keywords in all the installed documents.
• Open Pages to view a list of currently open documentation pages.
• Search to search from all the installed documents.

Adding Bookmarks to Help Pages

You can add bookmarks to useful help pages to easily find them later in the Bookmarks view. You can either use the page title as the bookmark or change it to any text. You can organize the bookmarks in folders in the view.

To add a bookmark to an open help page:

1. Click the (Add Bookmark) button on the toolbar.
2. In the Add Bookmark dialog, click OK to save the page title as a bookmark in the Bookmarks folder.

To import and export bookmarks, select Tools > Options > Help > General Settings > Import or Export.

Adding External Documentation

You can display external documentation in the Help mode. To augment or replace the documentation that ships with Qt Creator and Qt:

1. Create a .qch file from your documentation.

   For information on how to prepare your documentation and create a .qch file, see The Qt Help Framework.

2. To add the .qch file to Qt Creator, select Tools > Options > Help > Documentation > Add.

Detaching the Help Window

By default, context-sensitive help is opened in a window next to the code editor when you press F1. If there is not enough vertical space, the help opens in the full-screen help mode.

You can specify that the help always opens in full-screen mode or is detached to an external window. Select Tools > Options > Help > General Settings and specify settings for displaying context-sensitive help in the On context help field. To detach the help window, select Always Show Help in External Window.

You can select the help page to open upon startup in the Home Page field.

Using Documentation Filters

You can filter the documents displayed in the Help mode to find relevant information faster. Select from a list of filters in the Filtered by field (1). The contents of the Index and Contents pane in the sidebar change accordingly.

You can modify the filters to include external documentation, for example, or you can define your own filters. To construct filters, you can use the filter attributes that are specified in the documentation. Each document contains at least one filter attribute. If several documents contain the same filter attribute, such as tools, you can use that attribute to include all those documents.

To add filters:

1. Select Tools > Options > Help > Filters > Add.
2. Enter a name for the filter and press OK.
3. In Attributes, select the documents that you want to include in the filter.

   

4. Click OK.
5. In the Help mode, select the filter in the Filtered by field to see the filtered documentation in the sidebar.

To modify filters, select a filter in Filters, select the attributes, and then click Apply.

To remove filters, select them in Filters, and click Remove.