Linking to WebHelp

[RonW63]

RH 7.02.001 running on Windows 7 machine

All

We are starting dev on a new project. The UI for the application is written in C# WinForms (apologies if I have this wrong - am not a coder). Each form will link to a WebHelp topic.

For our other apps we use a spreadsheet where the Form Operation ID is mapped to the Help topic path and file. This is then run thru an XML generator, and the XML is added to the EXE so that the form calls the XML and the XML locates and launches the correct Help. This works well, but the spreadsheets are a bit unwieldy to maintain.

As we now have the opportunity to get things right from the get-go, I was wondering what other options I have for linking to the Help?  I know that there is a Map File in RH Project Set-Up. I've never used it and therefore don't know the capabilities or limitations. I also am aware that the Help path/file can be hard coded, but this seems too inflexible.

Any advice and/or guidance would be greatly appreciated.

Kind Regards

Ron

.

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

See "Context Sensitive Help" in the help file. You basically have two ways of doing it - one is for the developers to give you a list of topics and IDs they will use to call the help pages; the other is for you to do the topic and ID matchings and generate a text file of mappings for your developers to take and use.

[RonW63]

I should have also mentioned that all our help is nested with a Master Project at the top with many child projects merged below.

[Willam_van_Weelden · Accepted solution]

Hi,

There are three viable options for calling WebHelp: URL's, Map numbers and Map id's (Topic id's). John Daigle created a tutorial for context sensitivity, see http://www.adobe.com/devnet-archive/robohelp/articles/context_help.html. For an overview over the options in WebHelp, see http://www.grainge.org/pages/authoring/calling_webhelp/calling_webhelp.htm. For a more technical overview of all the WebHelp options: http://www.wvanweelden.eu/robohelp/context_sensitivity_in_webhelp.

How to get the developers and writers to use the same ID's is something you'll have to figure out with your developers. Personally, I have the developers create unique id's for every forms they use. They need those id's anyway. In RoboHelp I assign these id's to the corresponding topics. The developers call the help with the screen id (topic id) and the help takes care of the rest. This means that you will need to assign ID's to all the topics that are part of the context sensitivity. Since you already have information in a spreadsheet, a developer should be able to quickly generate the .ali and .h file required by RoboHelp from the spreadsheet. This is a one time action as you can easily add csh for new screens one by one.

Adobe offers a default C# API your developers can use. It's located in your RoboHelp installation directory, the directory CSH API\RoboHelp .NET\Sample_RoboHelp_CSH_CS. I have a (much simpler and more powerful) C# API and tester application on my site: http://www.wvanweelden.eu/robohelp/webhelp_api/c%23 Note that the custom API is for WebHelp only. Ifyou want to use WebHelp Pro, see the example API that Adobe provided.

Greet,

Willam

[RonW63]

Thank you all. That was just what i needed to know to start my investigations and trials. much appreciated as always!