Providing help and hints

To make your formulas easier to use, you might want to add help. There are two ways to provide help for formulas.

The easiest way to add help to your formula is to provide hints for all parameters. A hint is a small explanatory message that is shown in the Fractal Mode tool window when the user hovers over the paramter, or when the user clicks the ? button in the title bar of the Layer Properties tool window, and then clicks the parameter.

To add a hint to a parameter, use the hint setting in the parameter block.

Although parameter hints are certainly helpful, they cannot provide an overview of the purpose and intended use of the formula. To overcome this, you can create a separate help file and specify its name and location in the formula file so Ultra Fractal can open it.

Ultra Fractal supports help in HTML files, in Windows Help files (*.hlp), in Windows HTML Help files (*.chm), in Adobe Acrobat files (*.pdf), in Microsoft Word files (*.doc), and in plain text files (*.txt). These help files are usually installed in the Help on Formulas folder. By default, its location is "My Documents\Ultra Fractal 5\Help on Formulas", but you can change this in the Folders tab of the Options dialog.

To link a formula to an external help file, use the helpfile and helptopic settings in the default section.

Ultra Fractal launches the help file when the user clicks the Help button in the Layer Properties tool window.

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