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PDA-Sized Help
Posted: Thu Jun 12, 2008 6:17 am
by KBaine
Does anyone know how to set up Help files so that as you write them, they are the correct size to display in a PDA window? I am writing Help for a PDA application, and I want to sort of self-impose small size windows in my Help so that it displays correctly in the PDA window.
Does anyone know of a forum that discusses writing Help for PDA applications? I could also use some tips on font size, font type, use of screens and graphics, etc. I have done this for years for regular-size displays, and I have some ideas of how to do it, but I think PDA screens require different considerations. I am interested in learning best practices in this area.
Thanks,
Kathleen Baine
Re: PDA-Sized Help
Posted: Thu Jun 12, 2008 6:23 am
by KevinDAmery
Not sure. You can, of course, define your skin to a specific size, but afaik Flare doesn't currently have a way to restrict the xml editor window to the dimensions of your skin.
Re: PDA-Sized Help
Posted: Thu Jun 12, 2008 6:31 am
by Richard Ferrell
You could create webhelp, and then using a Javascript call open it to whatever size you needed. Also you may want to check Out Mike Hamilton's our VP of Product Developments Blog Posting on the this.
http://madcapsoftware2.wordpress.com/20 ... -mobile-6/
Re: PDA-Sized Help
Posted: Thu Jun 12, 2008 6:36 am
by KBaine
Isn't there a way to set the window size for WebHelp from within Flare? If I set the window to open in a size that is a percentage of the display, would that solve this problem?
What I'm actually trying to do is write my topics with only so much text in each one so that the person seeing it doesn't have to scroll much. I defninitely don't want them to have to scroll left or right.
Thanks!
Kathleen
Re: PDA-Sized Help
Posted: Thu Jun 12, 2008 6:44 am
by RamonS
As far as I know Windows CE has a special help format (at least that used to be the case), which is basically a big HTML file with bookmarks. The help viewer only shows that portion of the content that is between two bookmarks or after the last bookmark. The section before the first bookmark is the default "topic". It doesn't allow for much formatting. If I recall correctly it can do bold and italic and maybe underline, but that's it. Since some CE devices have monochrome screens with very low resolution (such as the Compaq Aero 1550) there is really not much space available for help text. So it depends on which devices the application supports and what the minimum requirements are. I think all newer devices have a browser so that you could create WebHelp and leave out the TOC, Index, etc. by using a skin that is stripped of pretty much everything. I haven't worked much with different applications on PDAs, but the few that I did use didn't have any help on the device. The software came with a PDF to be viewed on a desktop PC. Speaking of PDFs, that may also be an option, there may be PDF readers for PDAs.
Re: PDA-Sized Help
Posted: Thu Jun 12, 2008 8:06 am
by LTinker68
KBaine wrote:What I'm actually trying to do is write my topics with only so much text in each one so that the person seeing it doesn't have to scroll much. I defninitely don't want them to have to scroll left or right.
I haven't worked with PDAs at all, so I don't know if there is a "standard" or more common window dimension that you can use as the worst-case scenario. For instance, in web design, it used to be that it was recommended you design everything to fit in a 640x480 screen. Then monitors got better and it changed to 800x600. AFAIK, that's still pretty much the minimum as far as designs go. What many people do, though, is put their content in tables or DIVs and set the maximum width of the table or DIV to 100%, so that it automatically adjusts its sizing to the browser window. You can't do that in Flare's skin, per se, but you can do it in the content. You can either set the <body> tag to 100%, or you can leave the sizing off the body tag and use a table or container DIV with its width set to 100%. You won't be able to test the output on your PC to compare it to a PDA
unless you resize your browser window to the approximate size of your PDA window. (And you have to have Flare's skin set to use the browser defaults for sizing.)
You might be able to do this someone in the XML Editor if you set a hard pixel width on the <html> tag. I have popup windows that are launched from an image map, and the topics that are launched have a custom class set on the <html> tag that sets the width and height of the topic. When the custom class is applied to the <html> tag, then the available area to type in the XML Editor is reduced to that size. It was a bit annoying for me because I use ems, so if your font size is in pixels then it might work better for you. But you could give that a try.
However, you really need to set up a process to get your compiled help to the PDA for testing. I realize that will be a PITA, but that's the only way you can test that A) your users can read the content on that resolution and size, B) your graphics/buttons are big enough that the user can click on them with stubby fingers, and C) that things like the TOC, glossary, and index work and display well enough in the window to be useful.
Re: PDA-Sized Help
Posted: Thu Jun 12, 2008 8:33 am
by KBaine
Hi Lisa,
Thanks for the information. I may end up developing this help in Notepad using pure HTML. I found some information on a Microsoft white paper about creating Help for Handheld PDAs. Windows CE, what this application will be created in, uses a limited number of HTML tags. There is no Search feature in Windows CE, but you can create an Index. It also requires certain Metatags.
I'm reading about a lot of different things you have to do to create Help for a PDA. The development part is very different from Help for the big screen!
Here is a link to the Microsoft White Paper if anyone else wants to read it who is also developing Help for a PDA or mobile device.
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/archiv ... x?mfr=true
Kathleen
Re: PDA-Sized Help
Posted: Thu Jun 12, 2008 9:35 am
by RamonS
Sounds like a feature request...but I bet that the format for Palm OS, Crackberries, Symbian, and cellphone Linux is different so that there is no such thing as "PDA Help".
Re: PDA-Sized Help
Posted: Thu Jun 12, 2008 2:58 pm
by GregStenhouse
I've just finished writing a small help system for a PDA device. I looked into the Windows CE format, which is called peghelp, but didn't get much traction from the developers for going down this route. I suspect if you do create peghelp, the help is accessible from the PDA's main help system (via Start) which would be quite nice. I ended up creating a series of basic HTML pages with small home/previous/next buttons down the bottom. Margins etc were adjusted to the bare minimums. Like you say, the biggest challenge is to make the text fit so the user doesn't have to scroll. What I ended up doing was creating a simple bitmap rectangle roughly the size of the PDA IE window, so I knew what size to shrink Windows IE down to for checking.
It's important to note though that the IE in Windows CE is subtly different than what you find in Windows! There is no such thing us hover, mousedown events etc, and text that fits in Windows sometimes just extends too much and wraps to the next line on the PDA. It pays to keep sending your sample help pages to the device to check as you go.
Let us know if you'd like to see the help system I developed, or at least the CSS.
Cheers
Greg