Building a Help System

A Help system is made up of one or more document files that are created by you. Some of these files will contain the text or graphics that appear in your finished Help topics. Other files will contain the information that controls how your Help windows will look and act. In the final compile process, the Help workshop will take all of these files and turn then into a finished Help system. The best part of this process is that if you do not like any part of the finished product, you can quickly change it and recompile.

Using the Help Contents tab, the user can select an item to view and then from there, navigate from one topic to another, based on what the user needs to find out. In addition to 'topic jumping', application Help systems usually provide pop-up windows that give detailed information about a particular word, phrase or picture without actually going to another help page.