OfflineDocumentation

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Table of contents

• Using offline documentation
  • Introduction
  • Installing and using QMS help browser
  • Installing and using local QMS Wiki copy

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(Valid as of QMapShack version 1.14.1)

Using offline documentation

Introduction

The official source of help for QMapShack (QMS) is the online QMapShack Wiki on GitHub. This Wiki includes help for QMapTool (QMT), too. The online documentation is also available offline as

• a QMapShack help browser or as
• a local copy (clone) of the QMS Wiki.

The QMS offline help needs access to the Internet only for following links to pages not being part of the QMS Wiki (external links).

Both forms of the offline help have their specific advantages and disadvantages:

Advantages	Disadvantages
QMS help browser	.
easy access to table of contents, index, and full-text search	.
no extra viewer/browser required for rendering	.
installed with QMS but can be downloaded and used without QMS installation	.
open with F1 click from within QMS	.
separate comfortable viewer	.
.	no possibility to edit pages
Local Wiki copy	.
available without QMS installation	.
possibility to edit pages	.
.	special Markdown viewer or Markdown Internet browser plugin required for rendering pages
.	rendering quality depends on Markdown variant used in viewer or browser
.	git is required for the installation of a local Wiki copy

Remark: Everything described for QMS is analogously valid for QMapTool (QMT). Some differences are mentioned later on this page.

Installing and using QMS help browser

• QMS is installed on the computer (preferred way to use the offline help):

  1. Start QMS.
  2. Press F1 on the keyboard. The QMS help browser pops-up. Use the contents, index, or search tabs to find the help topic of interest.

• QMS can't be installed on the computer:

  1. Go to the QMS source code repository and download the files QMSHelp.qch and QMSHelp.qhc (when having a QMS installation these 2 files can be found in the doc/html subdirectory of the QMS installation directory).

  2. Be sure Qt assistant is installed together with Qt and on your path.

  3. To open QMS help run the following command in a console window:

       assistant -collectionFile path_to_qmshelp.qhc/QMSHelp.qhc
     

• For QMapTool help replace qmapshack in the download link with qmaptool and replace QMS in the file names with QMT.

Installing and using local QMS Wiki copy

To install and use a local copy of the QMS Wiki carry out the following steps:

1. If not yet available, install git (tool for access to GitHub revision control system) and make sure that git is found on your path.

2. Create a local directory, say QMapShack-doc.

3. Run the following command in a console window to download the Wiki pages to the local computer:

    git clone https://github.com/Maproom/qmapshack.wiki.git QMapShack-doc
   

4. The Wiki consists of Markdown (*.md) and some other files, and to read them you will need some Markdown plugin to your browser. When looking for a Markdown plugin select one that supports GitHub Flavored Markdown (GFM).

   Example of a plugin for Google Chrome browser: Markdown viewer/Browser extension.

5. Open a Markdown (MD) file in the browser with activated Markdown plugin. Good starting pages are Home.md and DocMain.md. From these pages other help pages can be accessed.

6. The QMapTool part of the Wiki can be found in the QMapTool subdirectory. Starting pages are QMTHome.md and QMTDocMain.

Remark: The files necessary for the QMS/QMT offline help can be created locally when having a local copy of the QMS Wiki. To do so

• read the information at the top of the file Makefile.make,

• install the tools mentioned in this information,

• run the command

    make VERBOSE=YES -f Makefile.make show
  

  This will create and open the QMS help browser.

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