The Help menu items can be used to display information on a variety of topics. Each item corresponds to a HTML file in the Help folder. The information is displayed in a separate help window which behaves like a simplified browser. The size and location of this window is remembered when it closes.

Keyboard shortcuts for this window

Various keyboard shortcuts can be used when this help window is in front:

• Hit "+" and "-" to change the font size.
• Hit the left arrow or "[" to go back.
• Hit the right arrow or "]" to go forwards.
• Hit the home key to go to the Contents page.
• Hit the up/down arrow keys or page up/down keys if a scroll bar appears.
• Hit Ctrl-A on Windows/Linux or Cmd-A on Mac to select all text.
• Hit Ctrl-C on Windows/Linux or Cmd-C on Mac to copy selected text to the clipboard.
• Hit escape or return to close the help window.

Note that the above shortcuts are hard-coded and can't be changed. When the main window is in front you can use a different set of keyboard shortcuts that can be changed — see Help > Keyboard Shortcuts.

Special links

The help window supports a number of Golly-specific links:

• edit:file
  Open the given file in your preferred text editor. A non-absolute path is relative to the location of the Golly application.
• get:url
  Download the specified file and process it according to its type:
  • A HTML file (.htm or .html) is displayed in the help window. Note that this HTML file can contain get links with partial URLs. For a good example of their use, see the LifeWiki Pattern Archive.
  • A text file (.txt or .doc or a name containing "readme") is opened in your text editor.
  • A zip file is opened and processed as described in the File Formats help.
  • A rule file (.rule) is installed into your rules folder and Golly then switches to the corresponding rule.
  • A script file (.lua or .py) is run, but only if you answer "Yes" to the query dialog that appears.
  • A pattern file is loaded into the current layer.
• lexpatt:pattern
  Load the given Life Lexicon pattern into a "lexicon" layer which is automatically created if it doesn't already exist.
• open:file
  Load the given pattern or run the given script or switch to the given rule. A non-absolute path is relative to the location of the Golly application.
• prefs:pane
  Open the Preferences dialog at the given pane. The pane string must be lowercase and must match a known pane: file, edit, control, etc.
• rule:rulename
  Switch to the given rule.
• unzip:zip:file
  Extract a file from the given zip file and process it in the same manner as a get link (see above). Golly creates unzip links when it opens a zip file, so you probably won't ever need to use such links in your own HTML files.

Note that for some links (get, open, unzip) you can tell Golly to open the specified file in your text editor by control-clicking or right-clicking on the link.