OS/2 Version 2.0 provides a number of enhancements to IPF in addition to the capabilities available under OS/2 Version 1.3. This section briefly describes these enhancements; more complete information may be found in the IBM OS/2 Version 2.0 Information Presentation Reference.
The Information Presentation Facility (IPF) allows application developers to provide online, context-sensitive help information for Presentation Manager applications. IPF also allows online manuals and documentation to be built and viewed independently of applications. Automatic table of contents, searching and printing facilities are provided by IPF.
The hypertext links have been extended to include bitmaps and metafiles, in addition to text phrases. These hypergraphic links provide enhanced flexibility for the display of online documentation, particularly procedure manuals and tutorials. Hypergraphic links may be used to display additional information, send a message to an application, or start a new process in a similar manner to hypertext links.
Under OS/2 Version 2.0, links may be made between panels which reside in different source files; these files are concatenated and the resulting information may be viewed as a single entity. Both hypertext and hypergraphic links are supported in this manner. This enables larger amounts of information to be viewed, and allows the separation of volatile information into separate files for easier update.
The split screen support provided by IPF under OS/2 Version 2.0 allows a window to be regarded as multiple viewports, each of which may be manipulated separately by the author and the user.
Under OS/2 Version 2.0, all windows are composed of one or more viewports. The default viewport is simply the entire window. IPF Version 2.0 allows secondary viewports to be opened, to display related information which may be scrolled and manipulated separately from the parent information.
IPF provides two different types of viewport within a window:
These different types of viewports may be mixed within the same parent window.
Dynamic data formatting allows applications to place customized information in help windows or online documents at run time. For example, this facility could be used in a help window to display the data from a current transaction to the user, along with the required steps to complete that transaction. The help information is thereby made more relevant to the immediate task.
IPF allows items within help windows to be defined as hypertext. When the user selects such items, actions may be triggered (for example, opening another help window to display more detailed explanatory text, posting a message back to the application's window procedure to invoke an application event, or starting another process under OS/2).
Under OS/2 Version 2.0, IPF supports the use of multiple fonts within help windows or online documentation, as well as multiple character sizes for each font. By default, all help windows and online documentation windows appear in the system font. The Courier, Helvetica (Helv), and Times Roman (Tms Rmn) fonts are available in all display adapters supported by Presentation Manager. Where the specified size is not available for the required font, the closest match is used.