13
Replies
13
13
Replies
Valorous Hero
,
Hi Tamilyrn and welcome to our community
Sounds as if you are a bit confused.
1) Winhelp is dead.
While Microsoft probably wishes that were the case, it's not. 16 bit WinHelp files still work under Vista and 32 bit files WILL work at some future point after downloading the 32 bit WinHelp engine. So they want it to go away and they are making it painful to continue, but it will still work.
2) HTML Help is supported but is functionally inferior in the following ways :
- Window position cannot be specified as a percentage of the screen (pixels only) which is awkward for secondary windows as we need to support everything from 1024x768 to 1920x1280.
Point taken and not workaround I'm aware of. Possibly a developer could control this by programmatically calculating where to place the help window.
- Context sensitive help support is dreadful compared to winhelp - no formatted text, bullets, graphics, hyperlinks, etc...
Unless I'm mistaken, you may certainly use these features in CSH topics pulled from a .CHM file. Just take a look at IE, for example.
- Microsoft refuse to allow CHM files to be launched over a network so a server install is out (without a naughty registry hack).
Yes, Microsoft is suggesting WebHelp type solutions for this.
3) Webhelp is supported but rumoured to be on the way out in terms of Robohelp support. Is this true ?
That would be news to me.
Its also extremely clunky to ship with software due to number of files and, AFAICS, offers no context sensitive help functionality.
Not true - You can do CSH using WebHelp. When I conduct RoboHelp HTML classes, we actually have a module where we create it and link it to a web based application.
I guess we could get round the former by using .MHT files but reasonable support for context sensitive help is a must.
Not sure what a .MHT file is.
4) The Windows Vista Help directory seems to use 'h1s' files. What on earth is this ? For sure Vista has nicely formatted Context Sensitive Help but how ? Is this the new, much publicised MS Help format ?
Vista help is a new format and as far as I know there is nothing publicized about exactly how help authors will go about creating it. They are still working on the client we will see. Similar to the HTML Help and WinHelp display engines.
Cheers... Rick
Sounds as if you are a bit confused.
1) Winhelp is dead.
While Microsoft probably wishes that were the case, it's not. 16 bit WinHelp files still work under Vista and 32 bit files WILL work at some future point after downloading the 32 bit WinHelp engine. So they want it to go away and they are making it painful to continue, but it will still work.
2) HTML Help is supported but is functionally inferior in the following ways :
- Window position cannot be specified as a percentage of the screen (pixels only) which is awkward for secondary windows as we need to support everything from 1024x768 to 1920x1280.
Point taken and not workaround I'm aware of. Possibly a developer could control this by programmatically calculating where to place the help window.
- Context sensitive help support is dreadful compared to winhelp - no formatted text, bullets, graphics, hyperlinks, etc...
Unless I'm mistaken, you may certainly use these features in CSH topics pulled from a .CHM file. Just take a look at IE, for example.
- Microsoft refuse to allow CHM files to be launched over a network so a server install is out (without a naughty registry hack).
Yes, Microsoft is suggesting WebHelp type solutions for this.
3) Webhelp is supported but rumoured to be on the way out in terms of Robohelp support. Is this true ?
That would be news to me.
Its also extremely clunky to ship with software due to number of files and, AFAICS, offers no context sensitive help functionality.
Not true - You can do CSH using WebHelp. When I conduct RoboHelp HTML classes, we actually have a module where we create it and link it to a web based application.
I guess we could get round the former by using .MHT files but reasonable support for context sensitive help is a must.
Not sure what a .MHT file is.
4) The Windows Vista Help directory seems to use 'h1s' files. What on earth is this ? For sure Vista has nicely formatted Context Sensitive Help but how ? Is this the new, much publicised MS Help format ?
Vista help is a new format and as far as I know there is nothing publicized about exactly how help authors will go about creating it. They are still working on the client we will see. Similar to the HTML Help and WinHelp display engines.
Cheers... Rick
LEGEND
,
Hi Mike
Unfortunately, most of us here don't have Vista yet and many (including myself) are a bit hesitant to upgrade until we are certain that our applications will definitely work with it. As a result, we aren't sure that this will work. So I suppose my question to you would be the following:
Do you have Vista installed? If so, what happens when you try what you are asking? If you don't have it installed, I'm guessing your question is more along the lines of "What if?" No?
Sorry I don't have any hard and fast answers here. But that's the breaks when something like Vista comes along and many simply aren't using it yet.
Hopefully another author that has actually tried this setup will chime in here with some reasonable observations of what will be seen.
Sincerely... Rick
Unfortunately, most of us here don't have Vista yet and many (including myself) are a bit hesitant to upgrade until we are certain that our applications will definitely work with it. As a result, we aren't sure that this will work. So I suppose my question to you would be the following:
Do you have Vista installed? If so, what happens when you try what you are asking? If you don't have it installed, I'm guessing your question is more along the lines of "What if?" No?
Sorry I don't have any hard and fast answers here. But that's the breaks when something like Vista comes along and many simply aren't using it yet.
Hopefully another author that has actually tried this setup will chime in here with some reasonable observations of what will be seen.
Sincerely... Rick
LEGEND
,
At this point, I don't have access to Vista. But I'm about to
begin adapting
my content from Word through RoboHelp for application help and I have a
definite preference for WinHelp... I've resisted HTML Help (.chm) because I
don't feel it serves the user nearly as well as WinHelp and until now, that
wasn't a problem.
Scuttlebutt elsewhere indicates that Microsoft is likely to make
WinHlp32.exe (or whatever they're going to name it) available for download
sometime between now and the end of the month. I'm assuming they're
overhauling it so we'll see what it's like soon. It's unfortunate that
they're not going to allow application developers to distribute that
executable, though... guess we'll just have to figure out a way to launch a
"user-initiated" download during the install process.
Incidentally, I posted in the WinHelp forum as well because I realized that
it was probably a more appropriate forum for this discussion.
Mike
"Captiv8r" <webforumsuser@macromedia.com> wrote in message
news:er04hl$i35$1@forums.macromedia.com...
> Hi Mike
>
> Unfortunately, most of us here don't have Vista yet and many (including
> myself) are a bit hesitant to upgrade until we are certain that our
> applications will definitely work with it. As a result, we aren't sure
that
> this will work. So I suppose my question to you would be the following:
>
> Do you have Vista installed? If so, what happens when you try what you
are
> asking? If you don't have it installed, I'm guessing your question is more
> along the lines of "What if?" No?
>
> Sorry I don't have any hard and fast answers here. But that's the breaks
when
> something like Vista comes along and many simply aren't using it yet.
>
> Hopefully another author that has actually tried this setup will chime in
here
> with some reasonable observations of what will be seen.
>
> Sincerely... Rick
>
my content from Word through RoboHelp for application help and I have a
definite preference for WinHelp... I've resisted HTML Help (.chm) because I
don't feel it serves the user nearly as well as WinHelp and until now, that
wasn't a problem.
Scuttlebutt elsewhere indicates that Microsoft is likely to make
WinHlp32.exe (or whatever they're going to name it) available for download
sometime between now and the end of the month. I'm assuming they're
overhauling it so we'll see what it's like soon. It's unfortunate that
they're not going to allow application developers to distribute that
executable, though... guess we'll just have to figure out a way to launch a
"user-initiated" download during the install process.
Incidentally, I posted in the WinHelp forum as well because I realized that
it was probably a more appropriate forum for this discussion.
Mike
"Captiv8r" <webforumsuser@macromedia.com> wrote in message
news:er04hl$i35$1@forums.macromedia.com...
> Hi Mike
>
> Unfortunately, most of us here don't have Vista yet and many (including
> myself) are a bit hesitant to upgrade until we are certain that our
> applications will definitely work with it. As a result, we aren't sure
that
> this will work. So I suppose my question to you would be the following:
>
> Do you have Vista installed? If so, what happens when you try what you
are
> asking? If you don't have it installed, I'm guessing your question is more
> along the lines of "What if?" No?
>
> Sorry I don't have any hard and fast answers here. But that's the breaks
when
> something like Vista comes along and many simply aren't using it yet.
>
> Hopefully another author that has actually tried this setup will chime in
here
> with some reasonable observations of what will be seen.
>
> Sincerely... Rick
>
Valorous Hero
,
Hi Sugit and all
Roger analyzed how Microsoft accomplished NSR in HTML using only .CSS and explains it at the link.
Cheers... Rick
quote:Framesets aren't the only game in town for accomplishing this. Take a look at fellow Community Expert Roger Nilsson's site: Click here
One thing I like about WinHelp is the "non-scroll area" at the top of a topic.
In HTML Help this can only be done in a laborius way with sub-frames. And it makes the Help very slow.
Roger analyzed how Microsoft accomplished NSR in HTML using only .CSS and explains it at the link.
Cheers... Rick
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