There are many ways to create and implement context-sensitive Help, and procedures may vary from project to project. Regardless of the type of context-sensitive Help you need to create, a methodical approach can assist you in keeping the process uncomplicated and well-organized.
If you are new to context-sensitive Help authoring, get familiar with the basic terminology and ways of creating it before you start your project. This will take the guesswork out of doing the required tasks which will save you time as your deadline nears.
Meet with your developer to plan how you are going to create context-sensitive Help for your application. Identify who is doing what and when.
The best way to create context-sensitive Help for an application is to install it so you can use it at your own pace. If it's not possible to install it on your system, find a way to access it. At the very least, ask your developer to provide you with screen shots of the dialogs and windows so you have graphical information at your fingertips. Make sure you get updated screen shots whenever the interface changes.
Become familiar with the interface and use the application whenever possible to find out how to use all the fields and controls at the dialogs and windows. Interview the developers or subject matter experts to learn as much as you can about the interface. If you are creating topics about system messages, be sure to identify each message and find out what they mean.
If your developer has generated map files for your project, obtain writable copies of them. If you need to prepare them manually, use the Windows Notepad (or a text editor of your choice) and create the files. Copy the files into your project folder and import them into the project.
Note: RoboHELP can automatically generate map files if you do not have them available. Discuss this with your developer first, in case you need to assign specific map numbers to the topic IDs that you create and link to the context-sensitive Help topics. (Map numbers automatically start with 1 in the map file.)
The map files contain topic IDs that you will use with your context-sensitive Help topics. Find out which topic IDs are associated with each topic. If RoboHELP is automatically generating map files, ask your developer if there are standard naming conventions you need to follow when assigning topic ID text (because you will manually need to enter them). Your developer can provide you with this information.
If you are creating What's This? Help, you author text-only topics in RoboHELP or in What's This? Help composer. You associate the topic IDs with the individual text-only topics as you author each topic.
If you are creating window-level Help, you author the topics in the WYSIWYG Editor. You can take advantage of all HTML Help components including rich formatting, related topics buttons, style sheets, links, and more.
Window-level Help topics are displayed in custom windows that you design in RoboHELP. They can also open in the HTML Help viewer (if that is your preference). Talk to your developer about the window design that is most desirable for your application. Your developer needs to know the name of the custom window if you design one for this purpose.
If you are creating cross-platform application Help, you author the topics in the WYSIWYG Editor. These topics can include formatting, links, related topics buttons and style sheets.
For context-sensitive Help to work with your window-level topics, you need to create aliases in RoboHELP. You do this by matching each window-level topic to a topic ID (and its associated map number) in the designated map file.
If you are creating context-sensitive Help for a Windows application, compile the project and create a .CHM file. This file contains all the files in your project including the context-sensitive topics. Your developer needs to code the application so it supports your Help project. For more information, see Programming Help in applications.
If you are creating Help for an application that is supported on a non-Windows platform such as UNIX or the Mac, generate WebHelp output files rather than compile a Microsoft HTML Help file. Each topic is a separate HTML file in uncompiled format. Your developer will need to add code to the application to make the context-sensitive Help functionality happen. For more information, see Cross-platform context-sensitive Help.
In order to test, you need to have access to the application. It's important to test the topics to make sure that all of them are displayed at the correct dialogs and windows in the application. If you designed a custom window, you should test each window-level Help topic to ensure that it is displayed in this window.
If you have RoboHELP Office, you can test map numbers using BugHunter — even if you do not have access to the application.
If any of the topics do not work properly, make sure that both you and the developer are using the same map files. Open the Help project and carefully review each topic ID to verify that the correct ones are used with the correct topics.
For window-level Help, you may need to update aliases by reassigning topic IDs to different topics. You also might need to unassign aliases for window-level Help topics that are not needed.
RoboHELP provides reports that can assist you with your context-sensitive Help.
Map IDs report identifies all the map files, map numbers, topic IDs and window-level Help topics in your project. You can use this report as a check list when testing your topics.
Duplicate Map IDs report provides a quick way for you to find out if any map numbers are included in more than one map file (if the same map number is assigned to more than one topic, the context-sensitive Help will not work properly). If your project includes duplicate map IDs, let your developer know right away so you can create aliases for the correct topic IDs/map numbers and remove the ones that are not valid.
Topic Properties report provides a custom option for finding out which topics are used as aliases. It indicates all topic IDs that are matched to each window-level Help topic in a selected folder (or all folders).