Function Help

The Function Help tab has existed since version 3.0; the syntax tooltip in Ninox's editors, since version 3.1. From version 3.2.0 (beta) onwards, the tooltip gives way to the autocompletion list.

The Function Help tab documents what you can write in your formulas: Ninox's functions, those that Ninext adds, and the global functions of your own database. In Ninox's script editors, a syntax tooltip gives the essentials right where you are writing.

The tab is reserved for administrators. It only shows its icon, a scroll, after the Schema Overview tab; its name appears on hover. The tab and the tooltip can be turned off in the Ninext Settings, "Additional Tools" section: Interactive Helper.

Choosing a function

At the top of the tab, the selector has two boxes, like the one in Fields & Formulas: on the left the categories, on the right the functions. Type a few letters in the right-hand box: the list keeps only the functions that contain them. Each function is preceded by the icon of the type of value it returns.

The list brings together three sources:

The two categories marked with a star come first, on a pale orange background; Ninox's categories follow, in alphabetical order. Ninext's functions are described in Ninox's language (in English for a language Ninext does not know); Ninox's are described in English.

The AI task entries (aiTaskStart, aiTaskStatus, aiTaskCancel and "AI Tasks") appear in the list, but are of no use yet: they rely on the ninext.fr server, which is not open yet.

What an entry shows

• As its title, the function's name and the type of value it returns, then its description.
• Its signatures ("Signatures"): each way of calling it, with its parameters and their type. For a keyword or a Ninext addition, it is its syntax ("Syntax").
• Examples ("Example" or "Examples"), colored as in Ninox's editor.
• For a global function, its full code ("Script"), with numbered lines, along with the comment that precedes it.
• A 📖 Documentation link to the function's page in Ninox's documentation or in Ninext's (not for a global function).
• The "See Also" links to related functions. After such a jump, the ← button, to the left of the title, takes you back to the previous entry.

On hover, each signature, each example and the code show a copy button. The entry's headings ("Signatures", "Syntax", "Examples", "Script", "See Also") stay in English, whatever the language.

The Interactive Help switch

Below the selector, on the right, the Interactive Help switch turns the syntax tooltip in Ninox's editors on or off. It is on by default. Its state is remembered by your browser: it applies to all the databases opened in that browser, and only there.

Do not confuse it with the Interactive Helper setting of the Ninext Settings, whose name is almost the same: turned off, that setting removes the tab and the tooltip for all the database's administrators.

The syntax tooltip

In a Ninox script editor, put the cursor on the name of a function — from Ninox, from Ninext, or a global function of the database — or on a keyword: a tooltip opens under the cursor. It gives the signature, the description and an example. It closes when the cursor leaves the name.

• When the function has several signatures, the ‹ and › arrows, or the dots placed between them, switch from one to the other.
• The scroll-shaped button, at the top right of the tooltip, displays the function's full entry in the Function Help tab, and closes the tooltip.
• The tooltip hides as long as Ninox's autocompletion list is open, and during a text selection.

In the Console, the same tooltip opens when the cursor is inside a name; it also gives information on local variables, on the fields of the context's table and on keywords. While you type a function's arguments, a syntax guide is also displayed above the cursor, with the current parameter highlighted; that one stays displayed next to the autocompletion list. The Console's tooltips depend neither on this switch nor on the Interactive Helper setting.