Choosing a Help Format

[Fei Min Lorente]

Thanks for reminding me about coordinating tag content with the developers. ☺

We’ve been in touch with Rob Chandler (creator of mshcMigrate) and he’s helped us realize that I might have been describing our challenge incorrectly. The developers are using VS 2010 to create an application that will run independently from Visual Studio, using .NET 4.0 as the framework. From everything we’ve read, it seems that MS Help Viewer only works if Visual Studio is installed; is that right?

Fei Min

From: David Spreadbury [mailto:dspreadb at yahoo.com]
Sent: Sunday, November 24, 2013 10:21 AM
To: Fei Min Lorente; framers at lists.frameusers.com
Subject: Re: Choosing a Help Format

Fei Min,
Yes, both Omnihelp and OracleHelp for Java are very fast and very flexible.
Both the HTML Help Workshop help and Mif2Go Users Guide, discuss how to go about creating the tags necessary to make context-sensitive help work. The primary thing, from what i have have found, is the calls from the help to the application requires close coordination between the help and application developers to determine a mutually agreeable tag content.


On Sunday, November 24, 2013 9:12 AM, Fei Min Lorente <FeiMin.Lorente at onsemi.com<mailto:FeiMin.Lorente at onsemi.com>> wrote:
Okay, point taken. We won’t worry about all the HTML files being exposed in OmniHelp. And our software developer did notice how fast it was.

So we’re looking at context-sensitive help to see if we can get that to work in MS Help Viewer or anything else. It’s not a requirement right now, especially if it’s going to add any significant time to the schedule, but I’m convinced that it’s a key feature that can enhance the user experience, and one of the few advantages that HTML can provide over PDF. If we don’t implement it this time around, I’d like to include it next time.

Fei Min

From: David Spreadbury [mailto:dspreadb at yahoo.com]
Sent: Sunday, November 24, 2013 7:43 AM
To: Fei Min Lorente; framers at lists.frameusers.com<mailto:framers at lists.frameusers.com>
Subject: Re: Choosing a Help Format

Fei Min,
Personally I think you are stabbing at windmills. It isn't all that difficult to decompile a CHM, make a change, and recompile. How many do?
I produce OracleHelp for Java from Frame source. It also produces HTML for the content. It is delivered as server based, but there is nothing to prevent someone changing the HTML. Haven't heard of anyone doing it.

Dave


On Friday, November 22, 2013 12:43 PM, Fei Min Lorente <FeiMin.Lorente at onsemi.com<mailto:FeiMin.Lorente at onsemi.com>> wrote:
Okay, that would explain why no one seems to be using Eclipse Help unless it's an Eclipse product. :-)

We're concerned about the OmniHelp files on the theory that if people can do something, someone will. That could be a completely unfounded concern, so I'm glad to hear opinions to the contrary.

Fei Min

-----Original Message-----
From: robert.lauriston at gmail.com<mailto:robert.lauriston at gmail.com> [mailto:robert.lauriston at gmail.com<mailto:robert.lauriston at gmail.com>] On Behalf Of Robert Lauriston
Sent: Friday, November 22, 2013 12:26 PM
To: Fei Min Lorente; framers at lists.frameusers.com<mailto:framers at lists.frameusers.com>
Subject: Re: Choosing a Help Format

I agree with Jeremy, standalone EclipseHelp is a huge and complicated distributable. It's not a practical format. I'm not sure if there's a use case where it would make sense.

Why would users mess with your help files?

On Fri, Nov 22, 2013 at 7:53 AM, Fei Min Lorente <FeiMin.Lorente at onsemi.com<mailto:FeiMin.Lorente at onsemi.com>> wrote:
> And we weren't worried about OmniHelp losing files; we are worried about users going in and messing with them. Is there any way to lock them down?
>
> We're very curious about using standalone Eclipse Help; has anyone here used it for a non-Eclipse-based product? If not, I'll take this question to the eclipse_tw group.
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