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Basic Features

InterSystems provides documentation in HTML format and in Adobe Page Description Format (PDF):

  • The Online Documentation can be displayed any time the InterSystems server is running.

  • Class Reference information is available from the online documentation home page.

  • PDF files of the online documentation can be viewed or printed as you choose.

Online Documentation

Whenever the local server is online, it displays documentation in HTML format via a Web browser. The online documentation system gives access to information about core InterSystems technologies and specific InterSystems products and features, such as Caché, Ensemble, HealthShare, Zen, DeepSee, Zen, and TrakCare.

Starting Up

While the server is running, you can access the online documentation in any of the following ways:

  • Find the InterSystems cube in the Windows system tray. Click on it to display the cube menu, then choose Documentation from the menu.

  • From the Windows Start menu, choose Programs. Navigate to the InterSystems product name and server instance name, then choose the Documentation option.

  • Enter the following URL into a browser page on the local InterSystems server, where 57772 is the Web server port number configured for the server:

    http://localhost:57772/csp/docbook/DocBook.UI.HomePageZen.cls

  • While using the Management Portal, click the Help link in the banner at the top of the page. A second window pops up. If this does not already contain the information you need, click the Documentation link in the navigation bar near the top left of this page.

If your preferred InterSystems instance is not running when you request Documentation using any of these techniques, the documentation system responds as if you are having difficulty running that instance. That is, an HTML page displays from which you can navigate to the InterSystems documents that are most likely to help when the system is down. To view these documents, click on a language name in the page (English or Japanese) and choose a document from the list. These documents are in PDF format so that they can be viewed even when the server is down. If you want to see the full set of documents in HTML format, restart the preferred instance and request Documentation again.

Studio provides two convenient short cuts for displaying online documentation:

  • While viewing code, select any text string in the source code and press the F1 key. The online documentation Search Results page opens to reveal the results of a search on this text string. If the highlighted text string was an ObjectScript language keyword, the documentation for that specific item displays.

  • From the Studio Help menu, choose the On-line Documentation option. This opens the online documentation home page, from which you can navigate to a specific book or topic.

If you have tried all of these techniques and still cannot view the online documentation, contact the InterSystems Worldwide Response CenterOpens in a new tab for assistance. Meanwhile, you can still access InterSystems documentation in PDF format as described in the chapter “Printed Documentation.”

Navigation

Each page of the InterSystems documentation system displays a banner at the top of the page that provides the following choices from left to right:

Option Action
Home Takes you to the main Documentation page.
« Displays the previous chapter or reference page in the book that you are currently viewing. Appears dimmed if there is no previous chapter or reference page. The « link is not the same as the Back button in your browser; it reflects book sequence rather than your browsing history.
» Displays the next chapter or reference page in the book that you are currently viewing. Appears dimmed if there is no next chapter or reference page. The » link is not the same as the Forward button in your browser; it reflects book sequence rather than your browsing history.

Below the banner, a navigation bar contains the following items from left to right:

Option Action
Navigation trail for the documentation system To return to the main Documentation page, click Documentation in this trail.
Go to The Go to box is visible only when you are currently viewing a book. It does not appear on the main Documentation page. The Go to box contains a list of section titles within the current page. Selecting one brings you directly to that section.
Search Typing a word into the Search field and pressing the Enter key takes you to the Search Results page for that word. Alternatively, you can click on the Search label to go to the advanced search page. For details, see the chapter “Using the Search Engine.”

Below the navigation bar, a menu provides the following choices from left to right. These choices are not visible when you are viewing a book. You can only use them from the main page:

Option Action
Getting Started Displays the official Getting Started page for the product.
Class Reference Opens the Class Reference documentation system.
Search Page Invokes the Search Facility for online documentation.

Security

Security features can affect your ability to view the online documentation.

For example, depending on the security settings for your InterSystems server, you might need to perform special configuration to allow any user to gain access to the online documentation. For background information see the “Tightening Security for a Caché Instance” chapter in the Caché Security Administration Guide. For a detailed procedure, see the section “Making the Documentation or Samples Available” in that chapter.

Also, on Windows, when trying to access the documentation via the InterSystems cube, the user ID assigned for the attempt is UnknownUser. This can cause problems in using the online documentation as follows:

  • When the InterSystems server instance is installed with a security level of Normal or Locked Down, the UnknownUser only has the %DB_DocBook:R privilege. This is insufficient to read the Caché class reference documentation. The %Development:Use privilege is required.

  • In order to run program examples in the online documentation, the user must have %DB_SAMPLES:W permission. If the UnknownUser lacks this permission, the button labeled Run It will not appear in any of the executable program examples.

The solution for both of these problems is to define one or more roles with the necessary permissions and assign these roles to the UnknownUser. Alternatively, you can edit the application definition for /csp/docbook to add these roles whenever it is run. See the “Roles” chapter in the Caché Security Administration Guide.

Class Reference Documentation

The online documentation home page displays a link called Class Reference. This documentation system contains the comments provided by InterSystems developers for the object-oriented classes in the InterSystems product code. All comments for general, public use are visible in this system.

To view the Class Reference documentation, do one of the following:

  • Start the online documentation system. On the main page, click Class Reference.

  • Enter the following URL into a browser page on the local InterSystems server, where 57772 is the Web server port number configured for the server:

    http://localhost:57772/csp/documatic/%25CSP.Documatic.cls

  • In Studio, From the View menu, choose the Show Class Documentation option.

  • When viewing code in Studio, select the name of a data type and press the F1 key. The Class Reference opens at the description of the class that defines this data type.

When the Class Reference main page displays, you can use the names in the left panel to navigate to the namespace, package, and class for which you want to view documentation. The right panel displays the documentation. The Class Reference has its own banner which provides two choices from left to right:

Option Action
DocBook Takes you to the main Documentation page.
Search Takes you to the Class Reference search page.

When you add your own classes to your installation, comments you add to these classes using specific documentation conventions will appear in the Class Reference. For instructions, see “Creating Class Documentation” in the chapter Defining and Compiling Classes in Using Caché Objects.

Note:

Documentation for any class member that is private only appears if the Private checkbox in the upper-right corner of the Class Reference is selected. Documentation for storage-related information only appears if the Storage checkbox in the upper-right corner of the Class Reference is selected.

The Class Reference has no PDF equivalent. It does have a search facility, which is entirely separate from the online documentation search described in the chapter “Using the Search Engine.”

Printed Documentation

The full set of online documentation is available in PDF format; see docs.intersystems.comOpens in a new tab. A limited set of PDF files is also available under the directory where you installed the product, usually C:\InterSystems\Ensemble\docs or similar.

InterSystems strongly recommends that if you want printed documentation, you do not print HTML pages from the browser, but instead take advantage of the pre-formatted PDF files, whose content is identical to the HTML. You can print these files yourself or send them to a print shop to be professionally printed and bound as books. For details, see the chapter “Printing the Documentation.”

Many InterSystems products share core underlying technologies, so you might need to examine more than one subdirectory to find the documents you need. For example, the Ensemble product provides docs\ensemble for Ensemble information and docs\cache for technologies that Ensemble and Caché share.

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