multiple help files

["e. farstad" <efarstad -at- NETWALK -dot- COM>]

You wrote:

Hello All,
I have a question regarding using multiple help (.hlp) files or a single
help file with multiple .RTF files.
Here's the situation:
Our company maintains several software products, all of which can work
in conjunction with the "parent" product. However, some of those
products can also work on a standalone basis. Our dilemma is that when
these products work together, they share certain processes.
We want to be able to link each of the products together so you can find
help on a certain topic without having to go into the other product and
access Help.

Our question is how we should structure our Help Files:
One Help/multiple .RTFs
Or
Multiple Help files.

What kind of experience do any of you have in this area. Our company is
pretty new to online help, so any input would be greatly appreciated. I
didn't have time to check the archives, and I apologize if this was
covered there.

Thanks in advance,

Aaron W. Morrison
Technical Writer
Medic Computer Systems, Inc.
My views are my own and not those of Medic.


Hi Aaron,

Are you writing help in Windows 95?  I'll assume you are.

You can structure your help files either way - as one with many .rtfs, many help files,
or a combination of the two - help files can contain multiple .rtf files.  Given how
your software will be used, it sounds better to build multiple help files.  You can do
this.  Here are a couple points, keeping in mind that you're tool is Robohelp:

--Let's say you've create multiple help (.hlp) files (and some of these may have more
than one .rtf, which is fine.  Each time you add a document to a project, you have
another .doc and corresponding .rtf added to the project.  Each project has one .hpj and
final .hlp file containing information from all it's .rtfs.  Nothin like acronyms - hope
you understood that)
Let's also say that, if you're doing Windows 95, each of your .hlp files have their own
nifty content (.cnt) page.  You can now create master content pages, and simply include
the .cnt files of all the help files you want accessed together in a master content
pages.  You will have to also set the help fiels to open the master content page instead
of their own .cnt (this setting is in the contents page composer settings).
So what does this get you?  Each time you open a help file, the master contents page
opens, from which you access the full information from each (separate) help file.  One
drawback to remember when structuring this way:  you can only link one .cnt file to each
help project.  So, if you have a help file that you want to include in more than one
master .cnt, you might be stuck with making a copy of it and renaming - maybe someone
has a better solution if you want to do this.

--Within your help files, you *can* make jumps to topics that are in other help files.
It takes a bit more work, because of course you have to tell the compiler which help
file to look in, but it can be done.

So, structure your help the way it best makes sense for your users, and have fun!
I hope this information helps.

Elaine

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