Flexible popup suggestion for WebHelp 3

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Simon Dismore
Posts: 454
Joined: Thu Nov 16, 2006 1:29 pm
Location: London, UK

Flexible popup suggestion for WebHelp 3

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Summary: in PP3/WebHelp 3 allow the header of any topic to be displayed as a pop-up in another topic. This would be possible if all topics and popups used the same JSON output format, as proposed here. To display a popup, load just hmHeader. To display a full topic, load both hmHeader and hmBody.

Background: When special terms (e.g. the names of processes or functions) are linked in the body of a topic, the reader often wants a quick reminder or summary of the term, rather than jumping directly to another full topic and losing their train of thought. Tooltips are useful for this, but they usually require the ability to hover over a term, which isn't always feasible in a mobile or tablet environment. Popups are another solution, but historically H&M has treated popups differently from regular topics, so a topic can either be a popup or a full page, but not both.

In the old days of authoring Microsoft WinHelp in rtf I got used to a more flexible approach. Back then the syntax for a link was to underscore the link text and follow it with hidden text identifying the target and optionally the window. A double underscore in the source rtf would generate a jump to the target, whereas a single underscore was compiled as a popup. When displayed as a popup, only the initial paragraphs, formatted as 'Keep with next' would be presented.
WinHelp link syntax example.png
Demonstration: the attached gif animation uses the WinHelp popup technique to cycle between topics for the 'BACK' dialog, the 'size' glossary entry and the 'BackPicture' property in a developer component. Solid underscores in the output are jumps to topics, dashed underscores are popups. When a popup is displayed, the reader can jump to the popup's topic by clicking the solidly-underscored title in the popup, or dismiss the popup by clicking anywhere else.
Two-stage-navigation-via-popups.gif
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