RE: RoboHelp: Ready to Publish...how do I do that?

["McLauchlan, Kevin" <Kevin -dot- McLauchlan -at- safenet-inc -dot- com>]

First, Missy Smith said:
> My new employer wants to make our help system available to our 
> customer to download. What files are needed to create a 
> "portable" help system? Is this still WebHelp? 

... then she came along with...

>  Okay, I just came back from my boss' office. She showed me a 
> zip file that they distribute and the customer downloads. The 
> only files it contains is all html files and a folder with 
> images. That's it. She stabs her finger at the monitor and 
> says, "That's what I want." 

Hmm.  Sounds fishy to me. 

JUST html and images... 
No CSS? 
No XML or other glue?

There's a reason that RoboHelp and Flare (and others?) WebHelp 
contains a BUNCH more files than just straight html and some 
images.

Those additional files (in a few sub-directories) are what 
makes it _help_ instead of just a collection of html pages. 

Things like the Search facility and the ToC, and Index and 
Browse Sequences, etc. are implemented via those other files, 
in addition to the straight html.  Without them, you've got 
some reading material, but you don't have a working, useful 
Help system. 

For each of our products, my WebHelp has

/top-directory_named_for_product
  /Content
    /somedirnamepeculiartomyproduct
    /anotherdirname
    /andanotherdirname
    /andyetanotherdir
    /Resources
       /Images
  /Data
    /SkinNewWindow
    /Skin(mycompanyname)
  /Skin
    /Images
 -startpage.htm
 -startpage.js
 -startpage.mcwebhelp
 -startpage.xml
 -startpage_CSH.htm
 -startpage_Left.htm 

That gets delivered to the customer in one of three ways:

 - on the software CD/DVD
 - on a standalone Docs CD that comes along with the software
 - in a downloadable tarball or zip archive of <see above>.

The customer has the option of running the help directly from 
the CD, or copying the complete structure to their PC hard disk 
and running it from there. (Or they can toss it on a file server, 
but in this form it's not meant to be served by a webserver engine.)

Does what your boss showed you include the functions of a 
usable help system?  Or does the user just open each one by 
filename with their browser, then close it?

The advantage of WebHelp is that it works pretty-much the same 
on Linux or Solaris as it does on Windows. 

 - Kevin




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