Create Help systems for MS WINDOWS-based applications!

AnetHelpTool is a software tool for the creation of Help systems for MS WINDOWS-based applications. It supports several types of output help format: WinHelp (16 and 32 bit), HTML Help and Java Help. It provides an easy and pleasant development process, which saves time and increases your help-writing efficiency. It also greatly simplifies design since the program is almost fully WYSIWYG and looks like an actual help file.

To create an output file in WinHelp format (.HLP file) the AnetHelpTool uses two input file formats: .RTF format for data and .HPJ format for project files. Both these files are generated by AnetHelpTool. To support linking of the created Help file with user's programs, AnetHelpTool also creates an include file in .H format.

To create an output file in HTML Help format (.CHM file) the AnetHelpTool uses following files formats: help project (.hhp) file, data HTML to combine topic (.html, .htm), image (.jpeg, .gif, .png), index (.hhk), and contents (.hhc). All this files generated by AnetHelpTool.

To create an output file in Java Help format you need to have Java Development Kit (JDK) or Java Runtime Environment (JDE) installed on your computer.

AnetHelpTool also lets you convert your Help project into local Web site. During this conversion each help topic is saved as separate HTML file. All links between topics and pointers to images are stored as relative paths, so the entire Web site can be uploaded to any other location without links loosing. Even browse sequence is reproduced in the compiled site.

AnetHelpTool has its own internal word processor based on multifont and multicolor text processing control, which provides WYSIWYG presentation. It's engine provides easy creation of all necessary files you may need to make a professional help file.

Main parts of AnetHelpTool project

The AnetHelpTool's project is a prototype of your Help system. You have to write all topics of it, link topics, describe them by keywords only once. After you've done it, you can get your Help file in one of the following formats: Winhelp, HTML Help or in the set of HTML files, that you can upload onto your web site.

As we said earlier, Help project consists of topics. The topic consist of nonscrolling area, graphics and the text of the topic.

There are mechanisms of navigation for convenient browsing through the topics in your help system. These mechanisms include Contents, Keywords and Hotspots.

If you are software developer, you can develop an interface of co-operation of Help system and your application for making context sensitive calls.

Content

Every Help system has to include Contents topic. It provides information about topics that are included in Help file. Typically Contents is the first topic available for user after opening the Help file. User can jump on Contents topic by clicking on Contents button in main Help window. There are three styles of Contents:

1. Win 3.1 style. It consists the list of hotspots linked with topics. AnetHelpTool uses this style default.
2. Win 95 style. It has three page tabs: Contents, Index, Find. You have to build a tree of topics for using this style of Help. AnetHelpTool has all necessary tools for building a tree.
3. HTML Help style. HTML Help Viewer has four tabs in the left part: Contents, Index, Search, Favorites. AnetHelpTools allows you to build contents as a tree, assign keywords. If your help project does not have any keyword the Index tab is not presented in the final HTML Help file.

AnetHelpTool lets you use all three styles of Help system - WinHelp for Windows 3.x, WinHelp for Windows 95 and HTML Help..

Navigation

There are four ways to navigate in the topics of your Help system:

• Choose necessary topic in Contents
• Find topic by keyword, which describes this topic
• Click on hotspot and jump to the topic
• Jump to the topic by clicking on next ( >>) or previous (<<) button in the main window of help system.

There are four objects that provide these methods in your Help system:

• Special topic which includes topic's list of your Help file. This list is called Contents
• The set of words describing the topic's subject. These words are called keywords
• Special area inside a topic (typically the text in this area has green color). When user clicks on this area a jump to the linked topic occurs. This object is similar to a hypertext link in the internet. This area is called a hotspot
• Browse Sequence. You can establish a linear path through the topics by preparing a browse sequence in your help project.

You can support all of these objects in AnetHelpTool. A little bit later we'll tell you how you can include those objects in your Help project.

Keywords

WinHelp application allows users to search for topics with the use of keywords assigned to the topics. When the user searches for a topic by keyword, WinHelp matches the entered word to keywords assigned to specific topics. If more than one keyword is defined for a topic, a search is performed on all of them. WinHelp then lists matching topics by their titles in the Search dialog box. More than one topic can have the same keyword. Because a keyword is a fast way to access Help topics, it is convenient to assign keywords to most topics of a Help system.

Keyword field consists of any combination of characters including spaces. Keyword string can be up to 80 characters in length.

Hotspots

All Help's topics are connected each other. Different users need different levels of detailed information.You have to provide a comfortable way for browsing through Help's topics for all users. You can use Hotspots for that.

Hotspot can be a text type or graphic type. The clicking on it causes a jump on another topic or pop-up window may appear or an external program (or macro) may run.

So, Hotspots can be classified by the following groups:

1. Hotspot which causes jumps on another topics. Hotspots from this group are shown like green underline (single line) text. Developer of Help system has to define destination topic for this type of hotspots.
2. Hotspot which causes a pop-up window. Hotspots from this group are shown like green underline (drop line) text. Developer of Help system has to define the topic which will be displayed in the pop-up window.
3. Hotspot which run program or macro. Hotspots from this group are shown like green underline (single line) text. Developer of Help system has to define the name of program or macro.

Browse sequence

Browse sequence is a group of Help topics that establishes a linear path through topics. It is useful for novice users, who need full information about program.

There can be multiple browse sequences in a Help file, but each Help topic can belong to only one sequence. You can move through help topics that are included in a browse sequence by pressing Browse buttons << and >>.

Topics

A Help topic is a distinct unit of information. Windows Help displays only one topic at a time. A user can view any topic in a help file by using a link to the topic or searching for keywords associated with the topic. Within a Help topic, there may be one or more jumps on which you can click to display another Help topic. A Help topic file typically contains multiple Help topics.

Every topic has:

• Body is the text of topic visible in a Help window. It can consist of: text, graphic, hotspots, nonscrolling region.
• Topic's attributes. It consists of:
1. Title. Typically every topic should have a name (title). AnetHelpTool uses titles to present the topics in a number of dialog boxes. Topic titles can be up to 80 characters in length. Strings longer than 80 characters are truncated by AnetHelpTool.
2. Context string. Context string is an identifier for each topic in the Help system. Context strings are not case-sensitive and can be up to 80 characters in length. Context strings can consist of any combination of letters, numbers and underscore symbol, but they cannot contain spaces. A context string must be unique, although the same context string can be used in more than one Help file, even if the files are linked through jumps. Context string provides the way to make jumps from topic to topic or to display look-up boxes, such as word and phrase definitions.
3. The list of keywords

Non-scrolling area

Nonscrolling region (NSR) may contain text or image which has a fixed location at the top of a topic. Even if the topic is more than a full screen you can scroll throughout the main window with the NSR staying in place. Note that a NSR can be created only if the topic containing NSR will be displayed as a jump window, not a pop-up.

Images

AnetHelpTool supports the following graphical formats:

• bitmap (with .bmp extension)
• metafile (.wmf)
• hypergraphic (.shg)
• multiple resolution bitmap (.mrb)

There are two methods for including images in a Help file:

• Embed bitmap or metafile directly in the topic text as an OLE object.

  In this case you can see the image in the topic text, but you cannot wrap text around the image (it is treated the same as a character).

• Create graphic reference in topic text.

  In this case, in the resulting .rtf file, the inserted picture will be replaced with a string of type:
     {command filename}
  where command can be one of the following values:

  • bmc - Aligns graphic as a character.
  • bml - Aligns the graphic at the left margin of text; text wraps along the graphic's right edge.
  • bmr - Aligns the graphic at the right margin of text; text wraps along the graphic's left edge.

  The filename should include only file name, not the file's full path.

When you use referenced graphics you have the widest range of options for displaying text and pictures. You can treat graphic as a character or wrap text around the graphic's left or right edge. You can include hypergraphics (created with the Hotspot Editor) only by reference. Including the same graphic by reference in several places in your topic file adds only one copy of graphic in the compiled Help file. For correct compilation of referenced graphics you should enter location of graphics files.

Note:
AnetHelpTool allows user to insert referenced bitmaps and metafiles as graphics, but it cannot display text wrapping around a picture if you insert it as bml or bmr reference.
Hypergraphics and multiple resolution bitmap are inserted as a reference string.
This is the single non-WYSIWYG AnetHelpTool feature.

Context sensitive help calls from applications

Context sensitive help call provides connection between the user's actual working situation and the associated help topic. It allows user to click F1 for Help on the item that currently has the focus.

AnetHelpTool generates an include file (of .H format) to connect the help system with the programmer's application. You can view the .H file using, for example, Notepad. AnetHelpTool assigns succeeding numbers to the topic context strings. The number is an output parameter which should be assigned to the appropriate control context ID by the application developer.

The programs used

To create Help-files in the WinHelp and HtmlHelp, AnetHelpTool uses external programs: WinHelp compiler and HtmlHelp compiler by Microsoft. Those programs are included to the distribution pack and will be installed to the AnetHelpTool directory.

To test correct spelling you can use the Spelling engine. "Spelling engine" is the seet of the "spelling DLL" and language specific dictionaries. We have not license to re-distribute the spelling engine dll's but AHT have all necessary interfaces (CSAP - Common Speller Application Programming Interface). So, you can use Word 97 capabilities for this purpose.

System Requirements: