16.1 Weighing Help-system
alternatives
Most users expect three navigation elements in a Help
system:
- Table of Contents (TOC), preferably
in an expanding and collapsing tree form, that tracks your position in
the Help system
- Index (IX), with multiple levels
and See/See Also capabilities
- Full-Text Search (FTS) that
gets you directly to each occurrence of a word or phrase.
You could use generic HTML for a Help system as
is, especially with framesets (see §22.12
Using framesets). JavaScript-based TOC templates are available
on the Web, and an index is not hard to create. But the search engine
is harder. So it is a good idea to consider the existing alternatives
for Help systems. Keep in mind that users might run into security issues
with any browser-based help system; all such systems use JavaScript.
In this section:
§16.1.1 Considering
Help-system features
§16.1.2 Evaluating
Microsoft Windows Help (WinHelp)
§16.1.3 Evaluating
Microsoft HTML Help
§16.1.4
Evaluating WebHelp
§16.1.5
Evaluating OmniHelp
§16.1.6
Evaluating JavaHelp and Oracle Help for Java
§16.1.7
Evaluating Eclipse Help
Previous Topic: 16. Producing on-line Help
Next Topic: 16.1.1 Considering
Help-system features
Parent Topic: 16. Producing on-line Help
Sibling Topics:
16.2 Completing Help system construction
16.3 Producing
contents and index for Help systems
16.4 Configuring contents entries for Help
systems
16.5 Configuring index entries for Help systems
16.6 Providing
related-topic links for Help systems
16.7 Jumping
to secondary windows in Help systems
16.8 Creating
pop-up topics for Help systems
16.9 Including
expandable sections in Help topics
16.10 Setting up
Context Sensitive Help (CSH)
16.11 Setting up
a dynamic modular Help system