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Contextual Help

Purpose

This topic introduces you to the contextual help and autocomplete features of the xamFormulaEditor control.

Required background

You need to first read the following topic:

Contextual help types

The content below briefly explains the types of contextual help that the xamFormulaEditor and FormulaEditorDialog display when users enter and edit formulas using the controls.

Mouseover help

The mouseover help displays the signature and description of a function when the user moves the mouse over a function’s name and leaves it there for a short delay. If the mouseover help is showing and the user moves the mouse off of the function name, the mouseover help close.

If a function has one or more arguments, the mouseover help displays the number of arguments defined while hovering over the function name. The same is true for optional arguments;only the provided arguments are displayed in the function signature.

xamFormulaEditor ContextualHelp 1.png
xamFormulaEditor ContextualHelp 2.png

Function Signature Help

The function signature help is displayed while the user is typing in a function and they type an open parenthesis '(' or an argument separator ','. The function signature help displays the signature of the function with the current argument highlighted, the description of the function, and a description of the current argument.

xamFormulaEditor ContextualHelp 3.png

Autocomplete List Help

When this Action Occurs The result is…​

User starts typing a function or operand name

All possible functions appear as a list under the function editor box

Navigation of the list is available via the scrollbar, mouse or arrow keys

List contents are filtered as more characters are entered in the editor box

Matches in the list are found based off the exact text entered in the box

If no items match, then the most recently matched item (or first item in the list if there are no previous matches) is selected

User double-clicks on an item in the list

Function name is autocompleted

User hits Enter or Tab

Currently selected autocomplete item is committed

User types a character that cannot appear in a function or operand name e.g. ‘(‘

Currently selected autocomplete item is committed

The typed text is sent to the editor

User hits Ctrl+Space in an area where a function or reference name can be typed

Autocomplete list is displayed

User hits the Escape key

User clicks anywhere on screen outside of the list

Use the left or right arrow keys to leave the function or reference name with the text cursor

The list is closed and the text is left the way it is

xamFormulaEditor ContextualHelp 4.png

Autocomplete Item help

The autocomplete item help is displayed only while the autocomplete list is open. If an item remains selected for a short delay, if available, an item description appears. If the item stays selected for longer than 10 seconds, the autocomplete item help will close.

xamFormulaEditor ContextualHelp 5.png
Note
Note:

If you don’t want contextual help to display in the xamFormulaEditor and the FormulaEditorDialog controls, you can disable it by setting the ShowContextualHelp property to False.