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In Line Help

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nostra:
We also could use a single HTML file with anchors, I suppose.

rick.ca:

--- Quote from: nostra on February 04, 2010, 11:38:28 pm ---In this chm file you have an Index (a list of keywords). I can assign these keywords to a specific control, so that when a user presses F1 when a control is focused he will get help according to this control.
--- End quote ---

I hope I'm not getting hung up on terminology...but it seems to me a "Topic ID" must be something used to reference a specific topic (i.e., I imagine it being passed as a parameter when the help file is called). Just to verify how they worked, I did add "Keywords" to each topic. They end up in the "Index" of the help file, and reference the topics they are associated with via the index. A keyword can be associated with more that one topic, so I'm assuming it can't be used to access one topic directly. If a keyword is only associated with one topic, maybe it will effectively display that topic, but probably in the index tab rather than the content tab. That wouldn't be desirable because the TOC is critical in providing the associated links to the wiki (or elsewhere).

The idea of using "Windows Class" is rather restrictive, if that's what you're getting at. But I'm not sure what you mean "specific control." If that's something more specific than a window class, and you can use that to call the associated topic (not keyword), that would be perfect. I only suggested window class because I see it exists and can be determined but the user (I'm using my AHK "Window Spy"). What would be really cool is if pressing F1 would load help and display an associated topic—if there is one—but also display the control name (or keyword or whatever you want to call it) in the status bar. Then, if there were no topic associated with that control, the user would be able to create one simply by adding a topic with that Topic ID.


--- Quote from: CAD on February 04, 2010, 11:51:55 pm ---A single large html file or PDF is simplest to implement.
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It's only simplest if one of those already exist. I think we've already established neither is particularly easy to create, and the result is not nearly as useful as the wiki itself.


--- Quote ---An context sensitive help file could simply reference the relevant wiki page. Just need to make sure page names dont change.
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The primary benefit of what I'm suggesting is that it can reference an existing source. Using a wiki is still the most effective way to provide collaborative help authoring. The main purpose of the help file will be to provide the contextual links to the relevant wiki topics. It can also be used in the same way to provide links to discussion topics or anything else here (e.g., the download page). Yes, it's important page names aren't changed. In most cases, there's no reason to change the name of a page once it has been created. What will be more of an issue is updating the help file for new wiki topics. HelpNDoc only provides for the manual addition of topics. It would be nice if it would import a list on new hyperlink topics.


--- Quote ---also note .chm files are becoming more and more frowned upon due to security risks the pose.
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Maybe we could add a warning the help file should be save for browsing the wiki and this site, but should not be used as a browser.

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