Help authoring tool for Windows app?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Ronald S. Cook
  • Start date Start date
R

Ronald S. Cook

I was just wondering if anyone knew the most common 3rd party tool to buy
for help authoring for our .NET Windows apps. We're looking to
choose/standardize on something. Or, is it possible there' snow something
built in that I'm not aware of?



Thanks,

Ron
 
You can try MS's latest half-hearted try
http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/extend/helplite/
It's a crippled version of Innovasys HelpStudio.... I've never used it. I'd
never even heard of it until I saw the link in the Visual Studio 2005
"Latest News" Start Page.

Personally, I like MS's HTML Help SDK
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/htmlhelp/html/vsconhh1start.asp
It's straight and to the point... there's a learning curve though.

I've given Doc2Help http://www.componentone.com/ multiple chances... once
many years ago and then again because it was offered for free with the
VB.NET 2003 Resource Kit a couple of years ago. I was hoping it had
improved. It had not... it SUCKS.

There's also RoboHelp. Haven't tried it in years.
http://www.macromedia.com/software/robohelp/ It looks sweet though if not a
little overlycomplicated.

I used to love creating classic Help Files using RTF in Word and then using
Visual Studio HelpWorkshop to compile them. I even had a great set of macros
to help me insert all the hyperlinks and table of contents and index and
keyword footnotes. Sadly, the newer HTML help is a little overcomplicated
(for what it does... which ain't all that different than classic WinHelp).

G' luck
 
It may be a "poor" boy approach but I use Word. Create a word document and
save it as an HTML file then when the help button is pressed, I use
Process.Start on the HTML file to start word...However, I haven't figured out
a way to include use of context help where one presses F1 on an object.
 
Well you can download microsofts help application to make CHM files if that
is what you mean. They take a little getting used to, but you basically
make html pages, and add them, then it compiles it to one file. Indexing
takes work, but I have managed to use it on a 20-40page help file with no
problem. Any larger and you might want to learn something like Component
One's DocToHelp(I think that was the name) This was free with Visual Basic
Resource Kit or something in 2003. It looked nice, but I didn't want to
take the time to learn it, so I just did it the way I knew how.

HTH,

Shane
 
Ronald said:
I was just wondering if anyone knew the most common 3rd party tool to buy
for help authoring for our .NET Windows apps. We're looking to
choose/standardize on something. Or, is it possible there' snow something
built in that I'm not aware of?
Click to expand...

Ron,

The HyperText Studio is a WYSIWYG help authoring tool. It is available
for download from our web site, www.olsonsoft.com.

....Stefan
 
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