Stuck on context-sensitive help

[JoeWeinmunson]

I might just be overthinking this, but I am having trouble understanding how to link to a specific point in a Help topic. We generate a .CHM file to include with our software. After expanding our search capabilities the boss would like the Help button to open to a specific point in the "Finding Customers" file depending on whether they are searching by name, address, account number, etc. Would this involve internal links in the topic file, like #name, #actnm, etc.? and if so how are the identifiers formatted?

[Psider]

When you say "searching by name" do you mean there your users are clicking on a little help icon next to the Name field in the application?

It's been a long time, but I think if the above is what you mean, then each field needs it's own unique ID just like for a screen; the help topic needs a bookmark at the applicable location; then when you link the context id to a help topic, you select the correct bookmark, rather than just selecting the topic.

Mind you, I could be misremembering as I haven't done context sensitive help in over a decade.

If you mean your users are using the search function in the chm, then that's a completely different thing and I'm not sure you have any control over it.

[Nita Beck]

… the boss would like the Help button to open to a specific point in the "Finding Customers" file depending on whether [users] are searching by name, address, account number, etc.

Is the boss suggesting that the CHM is somehow capturing the user’s selections in a screen in the application (e.g., searching by name, by address, etc.) and then can logically bring that screen’s topic at the specific matching subsection (e.g., Name, Address)?

I don’t think that’s possible, and not only not for CHM but even for HTML5. CHM isn’t a program that can analyze something and use inputs (other than a call into it to load the default topic or a specific topic).

What is possible is what Psider suggests, known as field-level help. One implementation is a little ? button beside each field. Another implementation is that F1 can call up a specific spot in a topic based on which field has focus. So say a user is on the Finding Customers screen. If the Name field has focus, F1 can bring up the Finding Customers screen at a bookmark associated with the Name field.

Field-level help uses the same kind of identifiers as can be assigned to whole topics. But one assigns the identifiers to bookmarks within topics. This page in Flare’s documentation includes information on assigning identifiers to bookmarks: https://help.madcapsoftware.com/flare20 ... ifiers.htm

I hope this helps… that I haven’t misunderstood.

[JoeWeinmunson]

Thanks, using bookmarks is exactly what I was thinking too. But for some reason the alias file is not letting me choose a bookmark within a file. Here's the topic; you'll see that I used Flare to create two bookmarks to start, name and actnm.

bookmarks in topic.jpg

But when I try to assign an identifier the bookmark option is not available. Am I just missing something obvious?

bookmark selector.jpg

[JoeWeinmunson]

Yay, I figured it out! I don't understand why this is, but Flare reacts differently if the file has an .html extension as opposed to .htm. Changing it to .htm made everything work hunky-dory and I can now link to bookmarks within topic files.