Wizard-like step through of topics

[Ian Krigsman]

Hi

I want to provide a brief introduction to my software with a 10 or so sequence of short topics that the user steps through. No need or desire for ToC, index or search - or other options - just a simple panel with [< Pref] & [Next >] buttons (in the footer if possible) and ideally with slide in animation of the content.

I could do this in code or a tool set like jQueryMobile, but want to explore if it's practical in Help and Manual because:
a) it will probably form the start of more extensive documentation
b) I'd like to publish other formats like PDF
c) H&M is my favourite authoring tool

I'm using v7 Pro with Prem Pack 3.

I thought there might be a skin for this but can't see one.

Suggestions welcome - or a reality check to say it's too hard.

TIA

Ian

[Tim Green]

Hi Ian and welcome to the forum!

What format are you planning for your documentation? Probably WebHelp or CHM. What you need is possible in both, although even with just 10 topics I would really recommend having a TOC. Even then, it will make it a lot easier for users to find their way around and will thus reduce your support requests.

In CHM:
In your project go to Configuration > Publishing Options > MS HTML Help > Help Windows and disable the option "Window has a navigation panel".

In WebHelp:
Here you will need to publish without a skin, because all skin designs are based on the assumption that help without a navigation pane is dysfunctional (which it is). In your project, go to Configuration > Publishing Options > WebHelp > Layout and select the "No Frames" option. This will eliminate the normal index.html layout page and the TOC file will be called index.html instead (it will just be a list of links to topics). To eliminate that you need to create your home topic with the ID "index", and set the topic extension to ".html" instead of ".htm" in Configuration > Publishing Options > WebHelp > HTML Export Options. Then your home topic will overwrite the the index.html TOC page and will be the first topic automatically opened by browsers.

[Ian Krigsman]

Thanks for your reply Tim.

I was steering towards WebHelp over CHM, but I'll try both of those options. I had been playing with skins for a modern appearance.

I don't really mind having a ToC, but good to be able to experiment without it.

Any thoughts on having the navigation (prev/next) panel at the bottom, or is that too risky at the html level?
Also, slide-in animation of content?

cheers

Ian

[Tim Green]

Hi Ian,

Any thoughts on having the navigation (prev/next) panel at the bottom, or is that too risky at the html level?

Not risky, just generally a bad idea, and you would have to program it yourself from scratch... I strongly recommend trying one of the skins included with Help+Manual, all of which have a non-scrolling header that eliminates the issue you are trying to address with this. Then the navigation is always available.

Also, slide-in animation of content?

Possible, but again you would need to add it yourself with your own scripting.

[Ian Krigsman]

...recommend trying one of the skins...

I had, since I figured that would be the best chance - but previously you said I'd have to turn off the skin WRT the navigation panel. OK, so I can't have my cake and eat it too!

with your own scripting

I'm guessing custom CSS would help here, but dealing with different browser engine anomalies... Mmmm maybe not.

Thanks again.