Best way to author field level help for a CHM?

Hi
I have been asked to create an HTML help (CHM) system for a .Net application which will include context sensitive help at both page and field level.
I have used map ids for page level help before - i.e. assigned a map id to topics and given this list to a developer for implementation, but I have never created field level help.
I've been looking at the 'What's This?' help project wizard but am confused as to whether this is the best approach and how it fits with the project as a whole (or even if it compatible with .Net applications). Does this mean that I need two help projects for the application - one for the main help, and one for the field level help? Is there a way to create field level help without using the 'What's This?' wizard?
I am using Robohelp 7.
Any advice gratefully received!
Chloe

Hi, Chloe,
As Peter notes, even Microsoft has backed away from using field-level Help in the last few years, so it may be worth trying to determine whether your users will benefit from having it available to them. That's not to say that you can't deliver field-level Help, however, as all the required methods for calling it are still available to .NET developers.
To clarify, what Madcap Software calls "DotNet Help" is just a proprietary Help viewer that the company hopes will be more modern and appealing to writers than the older HTML Help (.chm) viewer. HTML Help remains the recommended format for Windows applications, whether .NET or not, and you can use any authoring tool that is capable of outputting a .chm file to create online Help for a .NET application.
The method that your developers use to call field-level Help determines how it should be authored. If they use the standard .NET method (the SetHelpString method of the HelpProvider class), each text string is embedded in the application code itself, and not retrieved from your .chm file. More information here:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.windows.forms.helpprovider.sethelpstring(VS .71).aspx
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/821777
http://helpware.net/mshelp2/demo2/h1xNET.htm
Alternatively, developers can use the old HTML Help API to retrieve the text string from a .chm file. See:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms670082(VS.85).aspx
http://helpware.net/htmlhelp/how_to_whatsthis.htm
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=317406
The drawback of both methods is that the Help popups are plain text only — no graphics, text formatting, hyperlinks, etc. To work around this, some people use the third-party KeyHelp control to create feature-rich HTML popups. See:
http://www.keyworks.net/keyhelp.htm
This allows you to deliver the type of Help that you mentioned in your second message ("is there a way to do this so that these topics open in a small popup, without the TOC / tri-pane structure?").
Pete

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