Creating context-sensitive HTML Help without using Map #s

[MackDuff]

I am uisng RH 8 and am producing a compiled HTML Help file.

I am wondering if there is another way to call a topic from our application without using the MAP numbers in RH.

The developer would like to use the MAP ID (string) instead.

Is there a way to do this?

Please let me know.

Thanks.

[Willam_van_Weelden]

Hi,

There are some good articles on http://www.mshelpwiki.com/wiki/tiki-index.php?page=HTMLHelpArticles. AFAIK it can only be done with map numbers and URL's. WebHelp however does support the MAP ID.

Greet,

Willam

[Guest]

I realize this is an old posting, but I would strongly advise again using a static URL for the developer to map the help file to. In the future, if you need to rename the topic file, not only do you have to change the topic name, but the developer as well has to rename the file name. For large projects, this can become cumbersome and problematic. Right now, it's an issue we're fighting where thousands of topics are linked via a static URL, and because of application changes, most of the topics' file names no longer match what the topic is actually about.

On a side night, you can use map IDs with webhelp. I, personally, don't know how it is done, but our developers have done it and it works perfectly.

[Peter Grainge]

Your points are valid but there are also situations when urls are an excellent method.

For some projects our developers name fields and we have a method of identifying the name applied. We use that as our filename. By that means they know what the help file will be and can create the call before the topic exists and we don't have to maintain map ids for those projects. If we should fail to create the topic, the call has the logic to go to a higher level.

I wouldn't advise using map ids or urls, I would say understand how both work, their pros and cons, and then decide what works for the project.

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge