Using WebHelp for a Windows-based application?

[jensandberg]

Hi, all!  First off, I am using RH8.  I am creating the help for our Windows-based application using HTML Help.  Our group is looking toward using a different output for the Help.  We were looking into AIR for a while, but now we are changing directions and are investigating WebHelp.  Our director would like our help to "look like" the help for Microsoft Office.  Our software will remain Windows-based, so one of my questions is if there are any issues with using WebHelp with a Windows-based application.  Also, we would like to be able to post the help file on a support web site (or similar central location) where I can update the help file whenever I want and the customers would access that location to obtain the most recent help available. Would we have any deployment issues?

Lastly, we currently use map IDs for CSH.  Would we be able to retain the CSH with WebHelp?

Thanks for any information you can provide or direct me to!

[RoboColum_n_]

All the options and issues surrounding calling webhelp are documented here.

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The RoboColum(n)

@robocolumn

Colum McAndrew

[jensandberg]

Thank you, Colum!  I will take a look at this soon--looks like lots of information to digest!

[Peter Grainge]

Your director wants something that looks like Office help. Microsoft have not released the tools for anyone to provide that so it would be down to your developers. Remember to duck when you suggest they do that!

WebHelp should be fine for what you propose and Colum has pointed you to the material for calling it. Just one thing to watch for, are any of your users behind corporate firewalls and unable to access the internet?

You don't say why you backed away from AIR. Did you look at the browser based version of AIR help? It doesn't have all the functionality of its locally installed brother but it does update the appearance a bit.

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[perttime]

WebHelp has a couple of drawbacks, compared with HTML Help. They might or might not matter:

- When you want to install the help on a user's computer locally, your integration/release engineer has to set up things for getting a large number of files on that computer, instead of the one .chm file of a WebHelp. Packing those files into a separate.zip or .exe file in the installation package is probably the neatest way. Then your Installer must extract the files into whatever location on the hard disc you want.

- The amount of disc space you take up is larger: like if your .chm file is 200 kB, the files of a WebHelp will probably be more like 2 MB.

[Peter Grainge]

Against that the poster wants the help on a web support site which I take to mean a server. You cannot run a CHM from a server without some registry hacks.

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[jensandberg]

Thank you, all, for the helpful information.  Seems as though WebHelp will work for our product, but I will also have to check out the browser version of AIR.