Getting Application Help

Mira provides several ways to get help on using the application and its many tools:

1. Open the standard Windows help format User's Guide from the Help > Help Topics menu command at the top of the Mira screen.

2. Open the online html Mira Pro x64 User's Guide from the Help menu at the top of the Mira screen.

3. Open the online html Mira Pro x64 Script User's Guide from the Help menu at the top of the Mira screen.

4. View the numerous Tutorials and examples in this User's Guide and the online versions.

5. Use "Topic Help" to access specific topics about a window or command. This uses a special version of the html Mira Pro x64 User's Guide. Open Topic Help as follows:

Dialog Windows: Use the [Help] button on the dialog. This button is usually at the lower left corner (e.g., Rotate Image) or lower right corner (e.g., Plot Properties) of the dialog. Some image calibration dialogs (e.g., Create Master Flat) display the button on the middle right side.
View Windows: Use the [?] button on the main toolbar. Click this button to open Help for the top-most view window, including Image, Plot, Chart, 3-D Plot, Report , Script , and Text Editor windows.
Docking Panes: Use the drop menu button from the button row at the right end of the pane's title bar. If the docking pane has a pop-up menu, choose the Help Topics command from the menu. If the pane does not have a menu, the Topic Help will be immediately launched.
Docking Pane Toolbars in View Windows: Right-click the arrow button at the bottom of the Toolbar. Note that left-clicking the same button disables the command mode.
Keystroke Help Panes: Use the drop menu button from the button row at the right end of the pane's title bar. These panes are the Image Keys Pane and Plot Keys Pane.

Topic Help may use the Mira Pro x64 User's Guide source from either the Internet or the computer. The Internet version is periodically updated whereas the computer version is updated when the Mira installation is updated. The source is selected using the Use Internet Topic Help option in the General Properties dialog. When Mira is first installed, this option is set to false, meaning that Topic Help is opened from the Mira installation on your computer. The installed version should be selected when an Internet connection is unavailable.

6. The arrow button at the bottom of a window toolbar (e.g., Point Measurements) is a dual-purpose button. Like all of Mira's dual purpose buttons, it has a small red triangle on its lower right corner:

Left-clicking disables the active marking mode for the toolbar.
Right-clicking opens the online User's Guide page for the toolbar.

NOTE: After installing a new version of Mira, your web browser may display cached pages of an obsolete version of the online User's Guide. This can create issues with missing topics or lost graphics. To refresh the cache, use Shift+F5 or Shift+Reload the first time you open the User's Guide of a new Mira version. Some browsers do not respond to this procedure and you may need to go into its Settings to clear the cache.

Related Topics