Hi folks,
Please let me know, how you synchronise your topics and help calls. Or don't you need to do this?
I'm using a list, where I write down topic and it's associated dialogs and components. Would be nice to have a comment field within topic option to store this information. But there might be other ways to perform this task.
Synchronise help and application
Moderators: Alexander Halser, Tim Green
Synchronise help and application
Best Regards,
Michael Müller
H&M 6.0.2 Build 2352
Michael Müller
H&M 6.0.2 Build 2352
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Tim Green
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Hi Michael,
See this topic in the help:
Tools included with Help & Manual > The Help Context Tool
This tool exports and imports map lists of all your topic IDs and help context numbers. If you are importing a map file generated by your programming system you can automatically create new topic files for topic IDs that do not yet exist.
See this topic in the help:
Tools included with Help & Manual > The Help Context Tool
This tool exports and imports map lists of all your topic IDs and help context numbers. If you are importing a map file generated by your programming system you can automatically create new topic files for topic IDs that do not yet exist.
Regards,
Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)
Private support:
Please do not email or PM me with private support requests -- post to the forum directly.
Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)
Private support:
Please do not email or PM me with private support requests -- post to the forum directly.
Hi Tim,
that is not the point.
We don't use numerical context IDs but the topic IDs.
And most of the topics are not directly referred from our application. We just call the right chapter and then the user may read on. Now the help author chnges lots of topics, not only content but adding and deleting topics. To prvent our application to point to an non-existing topic our help author (wich is mostly me
) shold not which topic IDs are not subject of changes. Thus, I like to mark topics as "used". Today we use a separate list to do this.
Whilst writing this, I've got the idea to change topic status to "used" which migth help, even I mix different information.
that is not the point.
We don't use numerical context IDs but the topic IDs.
And most of the topics are not directly referred from our application. We just call the right chapter and then the user may read on. Now the help author chnges lots of topics, not only content but adding and deleting topics. To prvent our application to point to an non-existing topic our help author (wich is mostly me
) shold not which topic IDs are not subject of changes. Thus, I like to mark topics as "used". Today we use a separate list to do this.Whilst writing this, I've got the idea to change topic status to "used" which migth help, even I mix different information.
Best Regards,
Michael Müller
H&M 6.0.2 Build 2352
Michael Müller
H&M 6.0.2 Build 2352
The main key would be to not change the Topic ID's, they're not seen or used by the end users and can stay the same even if you drag your topics and chapters around the table of contents.
However, that said, I have had past experience of a browser base help system being used for context sensitive help where that was done by the application calling topics by name. It was a total pain as it ties the authors hands unless you can get the developers to make changes to their code and risks disaster when a new author comes along (as they always have a tendency to want to reorganize things).
So to avoid this on a recent project I added a baggage file called 'help.htm'. It contains some javascript and cut'n'pasted into it a copy of the help topic ID and context numbers as export direct from H&M.
Now the developers agree a help ID number with me and they then call 'help.htm?HelpID=xx' from the application. The javascript extracts the value xx, uses the list to look up which topic page it matches and loads that page. There are also some default behaviours to cover the context ID number requested no having a match or no ID being requested. It even copes with context ID's applied to an anchor with a page
Sure its not fully automatic but if I do go and change all the topic ID's its a simple action to export an updated list and amend the 'help.htm' baggage file. I used javascript because I can't guarantee running on a server with PHP. PHP would have been better as it can test ahead for whether the topic to load actually exists, I haven't found a javascript equivalent for that.
Sure this requires some coding but its very minor (a programmer would look at it and probably be horrified by my inefficiency). However it allows me to use the Help ID's fields that exist for CHM help files within my browser based help. It also gives me much better control over where the help calls go. I can have several context numbers go to the same page and then in a next issue change that to have them go to different topics without having to liaise with the developers to change their code. I just give them an updated set of html output to put on the server along with the application.
However, that said, I have had past experience of a browser base help system being used for context sensitive help where that was done by the application calling topics by name. It was a total pain as it ties the authors hands unless you can get the developers to make changes to their code and risks disaster when a new author comes along (as they always have a tendency to want to reorganize things).
So to avoid this on a recent project I added a baggage file called 'help.htm'. It contains some javascript and cut'n'pasted into it a copy of the help topic ID and context numbers as export direct from H&M.
Now the developers agree a help ID number with me and they then call 'help.htm?HelpID=xx' from the application. The javascript extracts the value xx, uses the list to look up which topic page it matches and loads that page. There are also some default behaviours to cover the context ID number requested no having a match or no ID being requested. It even copes with context ID's applied to an anchor with a page
Sure its not fully automatic but if I do go and change all the topic ID's its a simple action to export an updated list and amend the 'help.htm' baggage file. I used javascript because I can't guarantee running on a server with PHP. PHP would have been better as it can test ahead for whether the topic to load actually exists, I haven't found a javascript equivalent for that.
Sure this requires some coding but its very minor (a programmer would look at it and probably be horrified by my inefficiency). However it allows me to use the Help ID's fields that exist for CHM help files within my browser based help. It also gives me much better control over where the help calls go. I can have several context numbers go to the same page and then in a next issue change that to have them go to different topics without having to liaise with the developers to change their code. I just give them an updated set of html output to put on the server along with the application.
...doing a search on how well web help works in the Mac environment and came across my own thread. Thought I should update it a little.
The actual method and code being used was posted in http://helpman.it-authoring.com/viewtopic.php?t=6954.
It has moved from being an idea in some Beta software to being how the help works in a real web server based application - so it got through all the field trials and testing. Also survived the help and manual projects going through translation.
The actual method and code being used was posted in http://helpman.it-authoring.com/viewtopic.php?t=6954.
It has moved from being an idea in some Beta software to being how the help works in a real web server based application - so it got through all the field trials and testing. Also survived the help and manual projects going through translation.