HTML 5 Help deployment w/out internet connection

[DownintheHoller]

Hello,

Can someone share best practices for deploying an HTML 5 Help project on a local system that does not have an internet connection? I'm interested in hearing all suggestions and gotchas. For example, what are the considerations for packaging the Help project in this context? Is a lightweight server recommended? Are there any implications for context-sensitive help. And any other issues that come to mind. Thank you.

[NorthEast]

You can simply just install the HTML5 output with the app itself.
There's no need for a lightweight server to run HTML5 help.

We have standalone Windows apps, and for these the HTML5 output is just installed with the app and accessed from the local file system.

We also have a different and larger app that runs on a server, and for that it made more sense to install the HTML5 output on the server as part of the server app install. That means each client app accesses help from the server, rather than install the help locally with each individual client app.

[DownintheHoller]

Thank you, Dave. Much appreciated. All right, a real newbie question: is there any realistic way to view/navigate the HTML5 Help without a browser installed on the local system?

[NorthEast]

Thank you, Dave. Much appreciated. All right, a real newbie question: is there any realistic way to view/navigate the HTML5 Help without a browser installed on the local system?

No, because you need a browser (or the browser engine) to view the HTML5 help.

I would have thought all operating systems include a browser by default though.

If you had a locked-down system where no browser app is available to the user, you would presumably still be able to use the browser engine, so your app could contain a browser control that displays your HTML5 content.
If that's the case, your developers should know how to do that.
We ship the Chrome engine with some of our applications, and use it to display HTML5 help and other HTML-based content inside our app.

[DownintheHoller]

Ah, that's good to know. We will probably take that approach--providing the browser engine. Thank you, Dave.

[Paul_N]

Some of our users can't have internet access, so we install our software to their desktop PCs from a DVD or USB drive. The help (HTML5 Tripane skin) is part of the install as a zip file. The installer unzips it and puts it in a help folder so that any help calls from our software can find it.

[ChoccieMuffin]

We've just shipped HTML5 help for a big project.

One gotcha you need to be careful of is ensuring you embed the fonts you want to use for your help, if they're not standard fonts. I've had a problem with that because I can't actually SEE if it's worked properly because I have the fonts installed on my local machine (obviously) but recipients of the help might not have.

[NorthEast]

We've just shipped HTML5 help for a big project.

One gotcha you need to be careful of is ensuring you embed the fonts you want to use for your help, if they're not standard fonts. I've had a problem with that because I can't actually SEE if it's worked properly because I have the fonts installed on my local machine (obviously) but recipients of the help might not have.

When you set up fonts for HTML5 using @font-face, I'd suggest uninstalling the fonts from Windows on your own PC.
Then you can properly test that it's getting the font via the @font-face CSS, and not using the font installed on your PC.

Only install the font in Windows if/when you need to produce PDFs.