Maintaining context-sensitive Help

It's important to keep your context-sensitive Help topics in good working order, especially when developers modify the application. Authors should frequently contact their developers to find out how application changes affect the context-sensitive Help.

Obsolete features

When features are removed from the application, your context-sensitive Help topics that explain how to use these features become obsolete. Since you no longer need to use these topics, it makes sense to remove them from your project. This not only reduces clutter, but also makes it easier to keep track of your topics.

Update and improved features

Often, the names of fields, controls, dialogs and windows change. When this happens, you'll want to update your context-sensitive Help so it reflects the latest changes. This can involve renaming window-level Help topics to match renamed dialogs and windows, or it can involve editing the content so it accurately reflects how to use the updated features.

New features

With every new software release comes new features that you need to include in your context-sensitive Help. If new fields and controls are added to dialogs, you'll need to create new text-only topics that identify them. If new dialogs and windows are added, you'll need to create new window-level Help topics that describe how to use these features.

If the application includes new system messages (that are displayed at dialogs with Help buttons or ), you might need to create new window-level Help topics that explain the meaning of these messages. (Not all messages require Help. Your developer can identify the ones you need to write information about.)

Tips:

  • Although your HTML Help system might use a combination of What's This? Help and window-level Help, you will not use both types of Help with the same components. For example, if you create a window-level topic for a dialog, it's not necessary to create text-only topics that describe each field and control for the same dialog. By the time you are in the maintenance stages of context-sensitive Help, you already know what type of Help you need to update as a result of application changes.

  • However, if you inherited an existing context-sensitive Help project, the kinds of changes you need to make might not be so readily apparent. If this is the case, meet with the author who created the HTML Help project or talk to the developer for details about how to approach these maintenance aspects.