Using H&M generated help with an Eclipse application

[Patrick Dardenne]

Hi,
One of my customer develops applications using the Eclipse IDE.
They would like a nice Online help for their applications, just like you get with H&M .
Eclipse has a built-in help generator system based on DITA; however, I would like to use H&M to build the help system (so, NOT in a DITA format).

Did somebody experience the use of a CHM or WebHelp and contextual calls to topics from an Eclipse application? Developpers think "it should be possible", but any feedback on that would be greatly appreciated, in order to avoid bad surprises or discovering that finally, it is not possible.

Many thanks in advance to all of you.

Best wishes,

Patrick

PS: I currently use H&M version 5 and will upgrade soon to version 6

[Tim Green]

Hi Patrick,

A quick web search indicates that Eclipse may not support making calls to CHM files directly, but that's something your programmers would have to check on. HM generates 100'% standards-compliant CHMs, so if Eclipse can make the calls that will not be a problem, but you would have to be able to program the calls easily. Otherwise you can use WebHelp and make the calls with normal URLs. The syntax is explained in this topic in the help. If the WebHelp is on a server on the Internet or your local intranet that is the best solution, otherwise you can use our HM2Go mini server to display the WebHelp locally with server support.

[Winsteps]

Patrick, it looks like Eclipse can launch a system shell. If so, your customer may be able to launch a CHM Help topic using KeyHH - http://web.archive.org/web/200306011756 ... /keyhh.htm

[Patrick Dardenne]

Hello Tim,

Thank you very much for your quick answer and your resarch.
I currently suspect that yes, it is possible to make calls to contextual help from within Eclipse by embedding the call into some code.
However, getting it from F1 might require to use the Eclipse help generator environment and using a DITA format (BTW, you don't have plan to implement DocBook or DITA into H&M?)

Anyway, I will post the way we could solve this probem when it is done, so that H&M users are aware of the solution and the options available.
Thanks again and best wishes,
Patrick

[Tim Green]

Hi Patrick,

It's possible we may implement DocBook and DITA import to HM at some time, but exporting to them is out of the question, it would mean throwing away too much formatting and features. Originally we wanted to use a standard XML format like DITA, but it was just too limited and restrictive for a modern help authoring tool. HM's XML schema is actually pretty much based on DITA, so import would not be all that difficult. Export would not really work for anything except very simple texts.

[Patrick Dardenne]

Well, this over my current technical XML skills, despite I have started to work with the </oxygen> authoring tool.
I guess you have considered the option to enrich the schema of both DITA and DocBook, as well as building a transformation file to reflect the formatting of H&M, but there should be limitations for advanced HM features.
I was asking the question as I it looks both become standards for generating all types of documentations, and I find the Oxygen environment quite complicated to use, compared to HM.
Patrick