Dynamic Help

[pjnut]

Has anyone out there created dynamic help? I'm looking for any tips, concerns, issues, etc. I need to watch for. I'm doing some research for one of our project managers on the feasibility of creating dynamic help. So, for now, I guess I'm just "fishing" for any information I can get on the topic.

Thanks!

[LTinker68]

How are you defining "dynamic help"? Are you talking about DHTML, where things can fly in or other effects? Or are you talking about context-sensitive help, where the help screen that appears is specific to whichever screen of your application is current visible? Or are you just talking about online help, where the user can navigate as they want instead of following a path?

[pjnut]

Talking about dynamic help where the content of the help adjusts to the area of the application the user is currently accessing.

[pjnut]

I should have added that we use context sensitive help where users click the help button from a window/Web page and they are linked to the specific topic for that window/page. So the context sensitive help is not a problem...it's the dynamic help that adjusts to the page/window that I'm trying to become more familiar with.

Thanks.

[super-structure]

pjnut,

My company has dynamic help integrated into a few of products now. Several of these are all done manually, which has made it a tough sell to expand to new products. However, with a new product platform we launched late last year, the decision was made to find a more "out-of-the-box" solution for this. We evaluated a few different systems before deciding on Flare. It's DotNet help output is really geared toward this; particularly given that our software is runs on a DotNet platform (not sure if this is essential, though).

Essentially, we take their free distributable files (http://www.madcapsoftware.com/downloads ... ables.aspx) and add them into our product installer. Aside from the help content (which I am responsible for), the only other file required is an XML which links program interface features with specific help topics. This is written/appended by our developers once I hand over a help build. It's nothing more than a linking document with lines similar to:

Code: Select all

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes" ?> 
- <CatapultAliasFile>
  <Map Name="index" Link="index.htm" /> 
  <Map Name="welcome" Link="welcome.htm" /> 
  <Map Name="libraries" Link="command_reference\navigation_tree\model_tab\physical_model\libraries.htm" />
</CatapultAliasFile> 

It is a very simple, scalable system that has worked well for us. We also use this same DotNet help system for our online help, in lieu of a HTML help file (.CHM); along with a .PDF "printed" manual - both from the single source. The help browser that displays the dynamic help system feels fast and doesn't seem to add much to our program's load time (though I should add this is a pretty hefty piece of engineering software and doesn't load terribly fast to begin with). The help topics are XML styled with CSS, so its very easy to match the look & feel of our application.

The downsides so far have been that we find the MadCap Help Viewer - which displays the DotNet help files as a stand alone online help - to be fairly limited in terms of customizing. It is heavily branded as MadCap and lacks some of the features and customizing that you might expect if you used HTML Help of Web Help. Further, the Help Viewer also sends our users requests for updates when it is launched. We'd like to be able to turn that off and send them an update through our system. That isn't to say you have to use it this way nor that it might be a drawback for your, though.

Flare's is a very simple system for adding writing content, so I can't say there has been too many issues with that. In fact, if you've got old content you want to add to a new dynamic help system, it is pretty much ideal. I will say that since file paths & naming are critical for the linking file, it is pretty important to get some naming conventions and a directory system set up early on and stick with it. If you start moving or renaming files down the road, it can be a headache for developers.

-Jason

[pjnut]

Thanks for the feedback! This is helpful and something I can show to our developers when/if the decision is made to utilize dynamic help.

Currently, I create WebHelp (with some context-sensitive links to pages/windows within the applicaiton) and a PDF. I have been looking for ways to improve on this and am hoping dynamic help is the next step in the evolution.

Thanks, again!