Help System Implementation

I have a complex form whereby all input fields will all have their "tooltips". However, more text / explanation is needed.
To support this requirement I intend to have the caption (description side) of the input field trigger a help system on the Mouse Down event handler.
The use just clicks on the caption (which will be a read-only text field) and then a lot of text appears to assist them.
What is the best way to "lookup" of the appropriate help text ?
1) Use a global javascript array with "contextID and HelpText" and use ExecDialog to perform the pop-up and display of the text ?
2) Use a separate Acrobat document that contains bookmarks....and then go to the bookmark related to the particular contextID ?

George - I got it to work by keeping the button in front of the caption and setting it to visible with no fill, no borders
However, only the Mouse Down event handler would fire...not the Mouse Up. This would happen only if I tabbed to the button.
If I hovered over it and clicked, nothing happened because it appears the captioned text got the focus instead.
It appears I need to set the Focus to the button when the text field is entered.
Also I could not set a Goto PageView into a different document
On top of all of that, it appears impossible to scroll down to a bookmark in the middle of a page.
Finally, a Word 2010 document's bookmarks were not recognized by Acrobat XI even though the settings in the Word Acrobat Addin had the checkmark for this option.
Wow, this has been an exercise in frustration.

Similar Messages

How to implement Help System for an exit Web application

I want to know detail steps to use OHW create a Help System for an exit ADF web application.
I read a lot doc about Oracle Help.
I down load the demo bundle and test it. It seems working. But it need to start separately. Also I do not know how to use it to build a help system for an exit ADF web application.
Any body can help me to learn HOW with jdeveloper step by step.
Thanks.

Frank,
Thanks for your reply.
I checked the site that you mentioned.
I try the sample “demo with bundle. The sample worked.
But it needed to start separately with the application.
I do not know how to build a help system with the existed web application developed with Jdeveloper (It has two projects: model and user-view-control. It is deployed on Oracle Application server).
Could you help me step by step to build the help system?

Implementing Help System

Hi:
We want to create a Help System to run off the server for our web application.
The documentation says Oracle supports RobobHelp and Authorit,
does anyone have any advice on which is the better product to use,
their limitations, advantages...../
Any input would be appreciated.
Thank.
Sheena

If you are creating a server hosted help system for a web application,
take a look at "Oracle Help for the Web". Oracle Help for the Web is
a servlet-based help system that is compatible with the Oracle Help for
Java file formats. Information can be found here:
http://otn.oracle.com/tech/java/help/
An example of OHW showing help for our JDeveloper product
can be found here:
http://otn.oracle.com:8877/jdeveloper/help/
Be sure to read the Oracle Help Guide which discusses the product
and how to integrate it with your web application to provide context
sensitive help.
It is true that RoboHelp Office and AuthorIT both support the
Oracle Help for Java file formats. They are very different
approaches to creating help content, please see those companies
websites for information on their products.

Creating "help" systems for users (not other LV programmers) - where to start?

How should one approach giving users a built-in "Help" system? Users, that is, of a distributed application written in LabVIEW.
These users ideally would have no way of knowing the application was written in LabVIEW. To them, this application is just another program. The way the LabVIEW Help system works would be fine, but all the content would be inappropriate.
From the docs I see we can write "Descriptions" that show up in context-sensitive help when the user puts the mouse over a control, and a "Tip" that shows up when the context-sensitive help isn't even enabled. Are these typically the only help features built into a distributed application?
In the LabVIEW Help there is an article called "Development Process Tips" discussing creating web pages that document the VIs that you create, and another article called "Linking VIs to HTML Files or Compiled Help Files. Another discusses Creating Compiled Help Files, but refers to third-party software for doing this. Is this a typical approach for doing a nice job of providing help?
Or is there some other way to create a Help system that works like the existing LabVIEW help but has content we create?

Hello,
Let me take your questions in order:
Q. How should one approach giving users a built-in "Help" system?
A. Here's one approach I have used:
a). Give all front panel controls and indicators a description so that the context help will show information for those front panel objects, and also for relevant front panel objects a tip - this will pop-up when the user hovers over the object, and can be annoying if it's used excessively, but nice if used where appropriate.
b). Create html files, one for each "Page" of your user interface, and place a Help button on your user interface which will launch the corresponding document for that "Page." I'm not sure what your UI is like, but basically if there are multiple front panels the user will see, a page describing each object on that panel, and the panel's purpose is nice. If you're using a tab control in any of those panels, then a page for each tab is nice as well.
A variation of b). is to use a so-called compiled help file - a .chm file. These are only relevant for Windows machines, so if you plan to deploy across multiple OSs, then this is out. The reason documentation suggests you need a third party tool is because those .chm files basically collect a set of html files together into a nice document, with the usual search, index, browse etc. capabilites and we don't have a product which does this. The LabVIEW Help on Windows is a nice example of a .chm file. You can do something SIMILAR with just HTML and javascript, creating at least a contents page which has organized links to the rest of the pages (which themselves can contain links back to the contents page), and even include the ability to search keywords etc. You'll find various free examples of such html and javascript on the web.
Once you have your html or compile help file, you can use the LabVIEW Help VIs to launch them. For chm files you can open the file and direct to a particular page of the chm file, and for html files all you really need to do is launch the relevant html file in the browser of your choice.
Q. In reference to descriptions and tips for controls/indicators: "Are these typically the only help features built into a distributed application?"
A. No, the html or chm idea is a nice touch, and can add a professional feel to the application.
Q. In reference to html or chm files: "Is this a typical approach for doing a nice job of providing help?"
A. Yes, it is used internally as a standard - chm for windows and html for linux and MAC.
Q. "Or is there some other way to create a Help system that works like the existing LabVIEW help but has content we create?"
A. One ideas is that you could implement your help entirely in LabVIEW if you'd like. Basically you would be launching your own VI or VIs which would show whatever documentation you wanted/created. You could use a tree structure or something to provide some convenient navigation by topic, and even a search - you would be coding this, and although I haven't done it, it seems like it would be pretty easy to do.
I hope this helps, and happy LabVIEW programming!
Best Regards,
JLS
Message Edited by JLS on 08-30-2006 01:57 PM
Best,
JLS
Sixclear

Help system in pure e4 application

The eclipse help system is still bound to the old workbench and cannot be used in a pure e4 application. For the purpose of an rcp app we just needed a way to display the help application in a separate browser. This is easy to accomplish in a pure e4 app. Here is how:
I startet with a pure e4 rcp app based on the features org.eclipse.e4.rcp, o.e.emf.common and o.e.emf.ecore.
In order to use the help app I had to add the following bundles:
org.eclipse.help
org.eclipse.help.webapp
org.eclipse.help.base
org.apache.lucene.analysis
org.apache.lucene.core
org.eclipse.core.net
org.eclipse.equinox.security
org.eclipse.equinox.security.macosx (for macosx only)
javax.servlet
javax.servlet.jsp
javax.el
org.eclipse.equinox.http.registry
org.eclipse.equinox.jsp.jasper.registry
org.eclipse.equinox.jsp.jasper
org.apache.jasper.glassfish
org.eclipse.equinox.http.jetty
org.eclipse.equinox.http.servlet
org.eclipse.jetty.continuation
org.eclipse.jetty.http
org.eclipse.jetty.io
org.eclipse.jetty.security
org.eclipse.jetty.server
org.eclipse.jetty.servlet
org.eclipse.jetty.util
None of these have dependencies to org.eclipse.ui or any other 3.x stuff.
The Help Contents menu item is handled by the following:
package ch.arenae.anm.handler;
import org.eclipse.e4.core.di.annotations.Execute;
import org.eclipse.help.internal.base.BaseHelpSystem;
import org.eclipse.help.internal.server.WebappManager;
public class HelpContentsHandler {
@Execute
public void execute() throws Exception {
BaseHelpSystem.ensureWebappRunning();
String helpURL = "http://" //$NON-NLS-1$
+ WebappManager.getHost() + ":" //$NON-NLS-1$
+ WebappManager.getPort() + "/help/index.jsp"; //$NON-NLS-1$
BaseHelpSystem.getHelpBrowser(true).displayURL(helpURL);
For us, this is enough. But I think it could be easily enhanced to open a specific topic.
HTH
Peter

Am 01.07.2015 um 16:37 schrieb Michel Simeon:
> Thank for the quick feed-back. I'll try it out !!!
>
> MS
Hi all,
just for completeness: There are some bug reports regarding the new
EHelpService:
- https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=458829
- https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=457391
- https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=445600
The bugs are closed, but I think these are only some workarounds.
Personally I prefer also a "plain" E4 solution. But this could be a very
time consuming process since you have to re-implement the whole help
system. IIRC there was a proposal for this which stated the use of
docbook as source for the help files (but I can't find it anywhere).
As I also need a clean solution for this problem I could imagine to take
part on the discussion for it.
Greets,
Ralf.

Filtering Help system view by business questions

My client wants to use RoboHelp to create a help system that
covers ten web-based applications in one suite of products. The
products are used by different roles on a commodities trading
floor. The same person might use more than one of the applications
for different purposes. My client wants the usual Help TOC as one
avenue into the content. But in addition, my client wants to
provide a different path into the content. For this second path, he
wants entry into the Help system to be a series of business
questions (such as "What are you trying to do?" Possible answer:
"make a trade"). Then, on the basis of the answers, he wants to
display only a subset of the help topics. Just the ones that are
relevant, based on the answers to those questions. In other words,
a filtered view of the help system. Is this possible? Any advice
would be appreciated.

In our 2.5K-topic merged WebHelp project, we've implemented a
series of navigation pages similar to what Rick suggests.
Whereas the TOC is categorized by major features, the opening
page provides links to pages for User Roles, Functional Tasks,
Major Components, Menu Help (split between Client and System
Administration), and Reference. (I used a free
tooltip
utility from Walter Zorn to provide a hover "peek" before they
click to jump to a link.)
Each category within these pages has a list of the most
commonly used topics. Therefore an "Operations & Technology"
user would be provided lists of topics dealing with his normal
duties such as Batch Processing, Imports/Exports, XML Messaging,
etc.
Another method might be working with the developers to tie in
privileging to apply to the help as well as the application
features. You could "map" topics by using folders and/or topic
keys, such as leading "sa_" for system admin, "bp_" for batch
processing, etc.
Good luck,
Leon

Forms popup help - module implementation name must equal module short name.

I don't know if this was blatanly obvious, or if it has been already stated, but just in case it wasn't, I'll state it here.
Here is something that I noticed while trying to make the help system work. I found that the module's short name is stored in the CG_FORM_HELP (or any alternative name that one may use) table. However, when the form is generated, the key-help trigger sends the module's implementation name (only on property palette) to the procedure which calls the help form. I had modules with short names differing from the implementation name, and was forced to change the implementation name to match the short name in order to make the help system work correctly.
If anyone has problems with the user/help text from their modules, module components, and items not displaying (and maybe just the user/help text from the base tables showing up), then you may want to look into this.

I forgot to state that I was using Designer 6.0 Patchset 4 (6.0.3.8).

Regarding Java Help System...('',)

Hello All,
I had successfully implemented Java Help System for my chat messenger...
But the problem I am facing is.... after making a jar file of my helpsystem..I am trying to access my Helpset file from my java code....
When I click on Help topics button to display the Helpset It will give me the following error....
HelpSet: Could not parse
Got an IOException (null)
Parsing failed for null
HelpSet: Master.hs not found
Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NullPointerException
at HelpMenu.<init>(HelpMenu.java:30)
at HelpMenu.main(HelpMenu.java:63)
But I have placed that Jar file in my program....where all files are given....
Can anybody help me out here.....
Thanks in advance.....

I am using the following program to do so...
public class JavaHelpDemo extends JFrame
private HelpBroker someHelpBroker;
public JavaHelpDemo()
HelpSet hs;
try
        File f = new File("Master.hs");
        URL url = f.toURL();
        hs = new HelpSet (null, url);
        HelpBroker hb = hs.createHelpBroker();
        new CSH.DisplayHelpFromSource(hb);
        hb.setDisplayed(true);
      catch (Exception a)
        System.out.println("Error is here");
        System.out.print(a);
// constructor
public static void main(String[] args)
JavaHelpDemo javaHelpDemo1 = new JavaHelpDemo();
}//classActually my this program is running well and I m getting my helpset only when i insert all my files with htmls in my source path.....
I hav created a Jar or all these files and named it Help.jar
is there any way just to call that helpset using this jar without giving all files into source path.....
Regards,
Damz

Tutorial For Windows Application Help System RoboHelp 8

Hi,
I'm using Robohelp 8 and I've created several web based help projects.
I now need to create a help system that will be part of a Windows application. A local help that will install with the app.
Are there any tutorials on how to do this?
Thanks

Hi and welcome to the forums!
I wrote an article for Adobe's Developer Network which you may find helpful on how to implement context sensitive help with a web application using the WebHelp API. It was written for an older version of RoboHelp, but the concepts are virtually the same.
http://www.adobe.com/devnet-archive/robohelp/articles/context_help.html
In additional you will find more information regarding application help from these two resources. Some of what you need will depend on the language and platform of the application (.NET, C++, C#, PHP, Java, etc.) These are covered in the documentation:
This is the online help topic for context sensitive help on Adobe's website.
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/RoboHelp/8.0/RoboHTML/WS5b3ccc516d4fbf351e63e3d11aff59c571-800 0.html
Calling WebHelp on Peter Grainge's site
http://www.grainge.org/pages/authoring/calling_webhelp/calling_webhelp.htm
In addition, if your developers are using C++ language to develop their applications, you may find a new automatic feature in Adobe RoboHelp 9 to be useful.
You can download a trial version to check it out here:
http://www.adobe.com/products/robohelp.html
John Daigle
Adobe Certified RoboHelp and Captivate Instructor
Evergreen, Colorado
www.showmethedemo.com

User Manual/Help System

I'm writing a user manual and help system for my company's software product. I'm hoping that someone could give some starter pointers. For one, what tools are available to convert to PDF/HTML and other formats? If you ever used JBuilder, I'd like to create something similar to the Help Topics. Not sure. Help!

Could anyone explain the differences between AurigaDoc
and JavaHelp?JavaHelp is a specification for presentation of online help, implemented by a set of Java classes from Sun. It is not an authoring tool.
AurigaDoc is a tool for creating several output formats (JavaHelp is one) from a single XML source. You can do similar things with DocBook too.
/M

PS has a poor help system

Hi,
Since years, most mainstream applications have implemented contextual help. For every single little shareware or big commercial program I wrote, I have put a Help button in every dialog box displayed by the program. Clicking on this button or hitting F1 would bring the user directly to the relevant help page. This basic behavior of an application's help system has been the rule for years.
Not in PS . F1 has no effect in dialog boxes, not even in the Preferences dialog box.
For a top level application like PS, I find this very disappointing.

John Joslin wrote:
Adobe has decided to go a different way to enable live updating and commenting.
It has its points but personally I hate it.
Me too. I'd like to have instant feedback when I need help. It's far to be the case.
Cheers.

Need to develop a help system

I need to develop a help system for a Client-Server Oracle Form Application.
Can any one suggest any good packages to develop Help system?
Does any one tried Oracle Help for Java (OHJ)?
Please let me know your recommendations and opinions, thanks.
null

Two methods.
One generate a HTML file and use the Web.Show_Document to display the help file.
Two use shareware like 'Help Workshop' which can be found at www.cnet.com.
Good Luck

Why does reindex documents at Server in the Configuration Manager break the help system?

Background:
So, I have a nice hosted help system on Server 9. I'm using the Access database since it's a light load project. It works OK. All admin features work OK (except groups and users bug, unrelated), including reports on search and usage. So, I have been having a devil of a time making a particular search term work in my project: UTS. It's an acronym for a system at my work, and it's important that users be able to search on it. UTS is in several Heading 1s. It's not in the stop list as a typo. Just to be sure, I deleted the whole stop list. I added "UTS" as a topic keyword. It still refuses to find any results. Also, I've noticed some other peculiarities with search: the "context" displayed below the search result is supposed to show the word you searched for in its context, but it never does in my search results. It just shows the first words of the document it's listed as a hit in search. The search is not bad, but these two bugs were odd enough to me to start rooting around for solutions.
So, I run Server 9 on Windows Server 2008 R2 with Tomcat 7 and JDK 7u17.
The problem:
I noticed in all the Server documentation that Adobe crows about the wonderful full text search powered by Lucene, and how it's checked "on" by default in all contexts. It's not in mine. When I check "reindex documents at server," it breaks the project. Literally--Server can't find the project anymore, web calls come back with no answer. Uncheck the box, A-OK. So, why is this wonderful search technology not available to me? Is it because it's not available when using default Access? Or is something else going on here?
many thanks in advance.
David Morgan
Robohelp HTML11/Server 9 user

The problem is that my data collection software (VisualPlant by EMT) is unable to browse to the National Instruments.LookoutOPCServer. When I added an Identification category to the registry entry for the lookout OPC server I was able to connect but with some odd behavior. My setup is:
2 machines each running Win NT4 SP6a. One machine is running Lookout as well as several other OPC servers. The other is running my data collection software. I am able to connect to lookout using several client apps on my data collection machine (Kepware's Quick Client, and Matrikon's Client), however my data collection software (VisualPlant) cannot see Lookout. Using the NI server explorer and viewing the properties of all of my OPC servers I noticed that Lookout was the on
ly one listed that did not have a CatID. By modifying the registry and adding the ID's listed in my original note I was able to connect using VisualPlant, however this exibited some odd behavior. It appears that adding this setting prevents multiple OPC connections to Lookout. If you have any suggestions I would greatly appreciate it.
Thanks.

CS6 Help system problems

I have just downloaded and installed CS6 Master Collection and I have noticed that the help system in virtually all of the component programs does not operate either online or offline. Program by Program here are the results I received when attempting to launch "Help":
Adobe After Effects - no response at all
Adobe Audition - "Unable to display help for this topic - Error (10)"
Adobe Bridge - no response at all
Adobe Dreamweaver - "The help system cannot be launched because the help folder is missing. Reinstall Dreamweaver"
Adobe Encore - no response at all
Adobe Extension Manager - no response at all
Adobe Fireworks - no response at all
Adobe Flash Builder - Help Contents works however Flash Builder Help produces no response
Adobe Flash - no response at all
Adobe Illustrator - To access online help of to download help contents you need to be connected to the internet!
Adobe InDesign - Adobe Help Viewer is not installed and you are not connected to the internet. Re-Install!
Adobe Media Encoder - Adobe Help Client failed to launch
Adobe Photoshop - help could not be displayed because you are not connected to the internet
Adobe Prelude - no response at all
Adobe Premier Pro - no response at all
Adobe Speedgrade - No Help option is apparent
Needless to say - for all those warnings about not being connected to the internet - that I was connected!
Notes: I was running Comodo internet security so I uninstalled Comodo and CS6 and reinstalled the latter suite again without any security software in place whatsoever ... I got the same results as above both times.
I note several other posts on the internet about this same issue - all without resolution so far. Forgive me for being blunt but I would have thought that getting a help system in place and operating properly was critical for most users who will be unfamiliar with a new layout and interface or does Adobe just expect we are all going to rush out to purchase expensive instruction manuals?

Er ... surely there is a more appropriate answer than "the help client sucks" or doesn't anybody care that Adobe seem to be selling defective software at very high prices?
WRT PDF's - I would love to download these if only I could find out where to download them. Does anybody have a URL where these beasts may be found?

Is it possible to change settings in "Help System info"?

Is it possible to change Photoshop settings by clicking on Help and then System info? Since there is the possibility to type and the OK-button, I just started wondering.

All Help > System Info does is to report your system specifications so you can copy and paste them in the forums for troubleshooting purposes.
You can choose what to highlight and copy, but it does not change anything in your system like editing a configuration file would.

Help System Implementation

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