Copyright: (C) 1995, 1996 by HyperAct, Inc.


Welcome To HTMheLp - HTML to WinHelp

HTMheLp will convert your existing HTML documents into a professional looking WinHelp document - preserving all links, formatting and graphics!

Please choose one of the following topics to learn more about HTMheLp's HTML To WinHelp conversion :

Using The Program

The Conversion Process

World Wide Help - Connecting your Help File to The Web

Advanced Features and Technical Information

Trouble Shooting

Contacting HyperAct

Credits


Using The Program

The application main window contains 2 pages and several buttons. You can switch between the pages by clicking on the tabs at the bottom of the window.

•	The Files Page allows you select the list HTML files which will be converted, and the name of the resulting WinHelp file.

•	The Custimizations Page allows you to modify the title of the WinHelp file, and the copyright message. This is also where you enable support for HyperAct's World Wide Help in your help file.

When you are ready to start the conversion, press the Convert button. During the conversion, HTMheLp will display the Progress Window. In this window you will be able to monitor the conversion process. This is also where all the error and warning messages are displayed.


Using The Program - The Files Page

The Files Page is where you specify the names of the input HTML documents and the output WinHelp file.

To specify the HTML documents to convert, select them from the list of files on the left, and click the Add button to add them to list on the right side.

To remove a file from the list of documents to convert, select it and press the Remove button. You can also add and remove files by dragging them between the lists.

Click on an area to learn more about using the Files Page :


The Add Button


The Remove Button


winhelp_output_file
The name of the WinHelp file that will be created by HTMheLp.


winhelp_output_file_browse
Click this button to select the name of the WinHelp file from the list of files on the disk.


drives_combo
Use this list to select a drive to view.


dirs_list
Double-click on the name of a directory in the list to display the list of HTML documents in this directory.


files_list
Select the HTML input files, and add them to the Input Files List using one of these methods:

•	Drag the selected file and drop it on the Input Files List.

•	Double click on a file to add it to the Input Files List.

•	Select multiple files (using Ctrl-Click and Shift-Click), and press the Add button to add them to the Input Files List.


filters_list
Use this list to select the type of files which will be displayed in the above files list.


add_button
Click on this button to add the selected HTML files to the list of documents to convert.


html_files_list
This is the list of HTML documents which will be included in converted WinHelp file. See The Conversion Process for more details.

To add a file to this list, select it in the files list on the left, and click the Add button (or drag it to this list). To remove a file from the list, select it and click the Remove button.

Note that topic generated from the first file in the list will be used as the Contents topic in the generated WinHelp file.


remove_button
Click this button to remove the selected files from the list of documents to convert.


Using The Program - The Customizations Page

Use the Customizations Page to :

•	Set the WinHelp file title. This title will be displayed in the WinHelp window caption.

•	Set the WinHelp file copyright message. This message will be displayed by WinHelp when the user selects the Version option from the Help menu.

•	Specify the Root Directory <BASE>.

•	Enable World Wide Help Support.

Click on area to get more information :


Root Directory <BASE>

The value entered in this field (through the Customizations Page) is used to resolve relative references in the converted HTML files.

Relative references are easy to resolve to fully qualified URLs if the referencing document contains the HTML <BASE> tag, which specifies its full URL. However, if the referencing document does contain this tag, HTMheLp uses the value fo the Root Directory <BASE> field to determine its URL.

The value of this field is interpreted as the prefix of the URL of all the files in the Root Directory. The URL of files in subdirectories of the Root Directory are considered to be relative to this value.

For example, if the Root directory is c:\docs, and the value in the Root Directory <BASE> field is http://www.hyperact.com, all the files in c:\docs are considered to have a URL in the following format : http://www.hyperact.com/filename (where filename is the name of the file).

Files which reside in a subdirectory of c:\docs will have corresponding URLs - for example, the document c:\docs\demos\index.htm will be considered to have the URL http://www.hyperact.com/demos/index.htm.

If no value is specified in this field, all relative references from documents which do not contain the <BASE> tag are considered to be references to local files using the file: protocol.

HTMheLp uses the fully qualified URLs of referenced documents to handle the case where the local file corresponding to the referenced document cannot be located. In such case, HTMheLp creates either a World Wide Help Link (if World Wide Help Support is enabled), or a popup link which displays the name of the unavailable docuement if World Wide Help Support is not enabled.

The value in the Root Directory <BASE> field is also used to determine the names of the local files which correspond to fully qualified URL references. Using the previous example, a reference to http://www.hyperact.com/demos/index.htm will cause the local file c:\docs\demos\index.htm to be processed.


Relative URLs

Many HTML documents contain references (links) to other document in which the referenced document URL is specified in a manner which is relative to the URL of the referencing docuement.

For example, a document whose URL is http://www.hyperact.com/index.html can contain a reference to another document in the following manner :

<A HREF="demos/index.html>Download Our Demos!</A>

In this case, the full URL of the referenced document is http://www.hyperact.com/demos/index.html. This URL can only be determined by knowing the URL of the referencing document.


The Root Directory
The Root Directory is directory which is current (displayed in the Files Page) when the conversion starts.


help_file_title
The title which will be displayed in the WinHelp window caption.


copyright_message
A copyright message. It will be displayed by WinHelp when the user selects the Version option from the Help menu.


insert_c
Clicking this button will insert the copyright character (©) into the Copyright Message field.


base_value
See Root Directory <BASE> for details about the value of this field.


wwhelp_checkbox
Checking this box enables World Wide Help Support.


The Progress Window

The Progress Window displays the status of the conversion process. In case of errors or warnings, the messages will be displayed in this window.

Click on area for more information :


abort_button
Click this button to abort the conversion process. Note that phases of the conversion cannot be immediatly aborted.


html_progress
This meter displays the progress in the processing of the current HTML file.


rtf_progress
This meter displays the progress of the RTF file creation process.


console
This area displays various messages during the conversion process. These messages include general status messages, such as the current conversion phase, the name of the current HTML file and other information.

Other type of messages which are displayed in this window are error and warning messages. These messages are displayed in red color.

Note that the contents of this log are also written to a file named LOG.TXT in the current directory.


files_tab
Click this tab to switch to the Files Page.


customizations_page
Click this tab to switch to the Customizations Page.


convert_button
Click this button to start the conversion.


winhelp_button
Click this button to open the converted WinHelp file. The name of the file will be taken from the WinHelp Output File field.


about_button
Click this button for information about the program.


quit_button
Click this button to quite the program.


help_button
Click this button for help.


The Conversion Process

HTMheLp converts a collection of HTML input files into a stand-alone WinHelp file.

The resulting WinHelp file will have the following properties :

•	A WinHelp topic will be generated for each HTML file.

•	The title of the generated topic will be taken from the corresponding HTML file <TITLE> tag.

•	Any link between the HTML files will be preserved in the generated WinHelp file as links between the topics.

•	If World Wide Help Support is enabled, links to URLs which are not accessible on the local hard disk are converted to World Wide Help links. Otherwise, they are converted to popup topics which present the name of the unavailable URL.

•	Image files referenced in the HTML files will be converted to the BMP format and will be incorporated into the corresponding WinHelp topic. The image files must be in one of the supperted formats, see Trouble Shooting if this is not the case.

•	Once the specified HTML files are processed, HTMheLp will attempt to locate and process any HTML file referenced by them. This process will continue until all of referenced the HTML files are either processed or not found.


supported_formats
The following image formats are supported and will be automatically converted :

•	JPG

•	PCX

•	GIF

•	TIF

•	TGA


World Wide Help - Connecting your Help File to The Web

HyperAct's World Wide Help technology allows you to embed URL links in your WinHelp file. Clicking on a World Wide Help Link starts a copy of your Web browser, and instructs it to retreive the document specified by the associated URL.

For example, this link will instruct your browser to load and display HyperAct's Home Page on the World Wide Web.

When World Wide Help Support in enabled, HTMheLp will created World Wide Help Links for each URL in the converted HTML documents which cannot be resolved to a local file name.

See the Customizations Page for information on using this feature. Please review also the information in the Distributing The WinHelp File topic.


Distributing The WinHelp File

If you did not enable World Wide Help Support, you can distribute the converted WinHelp file as is, with no other supporting files.

However, WinHelp files using World Wide Help need the file WWHELP.DLL to be installed in \WINDOWS\SYSTEM in order to function correctly.

WWHELP.DLL was installed by the HTMheLp Setup program in your \WINDOWS\SYSTEM directory.

HyperAct, Inc. grants you, the licenced user of HTMheLp, a licence to distribute the WWHELP.DLL file with WinHelp files that you created with HTMheLp. You may not give or sell this DLL to others, or distribute it with WinHelp files that were not created by you, or that were created by you without using HTMhelp or by using the demo version of HTMheLp. No Royalty is demanded for authorized distribution of the WWHELP.DLL file.

Important : When installing WWHELP.DLL on users machines, please make sure that a newer copy of WWHELP.DLL is not already installed on that machine.


Advanced Features and Technical Information

Technical Information

Supported Netscape Extension

Advanced Features

In addition to the one-click conversion to WinHelp, HTMheLp offers some additional features which are usefull mainly to users of HyperAct's HLPDK/PA product.

Converting to OS/2 IPF

Customizing WinHelp Fonts


Converting to OS/2 IPF

Users of HyperAct's HLPDK/PA can use the HLPDK Help Compiler (helpc.exe) to generate an OS/2 IPF version of the help file.

To perform the conversion, follow these steps :

•	Convert the HTML files to WinHelp as you normally would.

•	Run helpc in the directory where the WinHelp file was created with the following command line:
HELPC /OS2 /I<HTMheLp directory> <WinHelp-base-name>
Where <HTMheLp directory> is the directory where HTMheLp was installed, and <WinHelp-base-name> is the name of the generated WinHelp file without the extension.

•	Run the OS/2 IPF Compiler (IPFC) in the same directory with the following command line :
IPFC /INF <WinHelp-base-name>

This should result in a file with the extension INF and the same base name as the WinHelp file in the current directory.

For example, if HTMheLp was installed in c:\htmhelp, and the WinHelp output file is c:\mydir\myhelp.hlp, you should enter the following sequence of commands on the command line, in the c:\mydir directory :

•	HELPC /OS2 /IC:\HTMHELP MYHELP

•	IPFC /INF MYHELP


Customizing WinHelp Fonts

The various fonts and other attributes used by HTMheLp in the generated WinHelp file can be customized by editing the file STYLES.HDF.

This file can be found in the HTMheLp application directory. It is written in HyperAct's HyperMedia Definition Format (HDF). For documentation on the HDF format, see the online help in HyperAct's HLPDK/PA product.

The only documentation provided for this feature is the internal documentation in STYLES.HDF.


Supported Netscape Extension

•	TYPE tag in the UL, OL, LI elements

•	START tag in the OL element

•	VALUE tag in the LI element

•	<FONT SIZE>, <BASEFONT SIZE>

•	<CENTER>

•	Escape Sequences : &reg, &copy


Trouble Shooting

Manual Conversion of Images

Image files referenced in the HTML files are automatically converted by HTMheLp to the BMP format, which is required by the Microsoft Help Compiler. However, if the image is not in one of the supported formats, you will need to convert it manualy using a 3rd-party tool to the BMP format before starting the HTML files conversion.

In order for HTMheLp to be able to locate the converted image, it must be located in the same directory as the original image, and must have the same base name.

For example, if you manually converted D:\PAGES\MYPICTURE.XBM, the converted image must be located at D:\PAGES\MYPICTURE.BMP.


Contacting HyperAct

For orders or information, please contact HyperAct at :

HyperAct, Inc.

3437 335th Street

West Des Moines, IA 50266 USA

Tel/Fax  (515) 987-2910

Fax only (515) 987-2909

CIS - 76350,333 or 102703,3274

Internet - rhalevi@hyperact.com

World Wide Web - http://www.hyperact.com/

For HTMheLp technical support, contact through Internet email ygolan@hyperact.com.


Credits

HTMheLp was written by Yaniv Golan.

HTMheLp is written in Borland Delphi.

HTMheLp uses technology from HyperAct's HLPDK/PA product. HLPDK/PA was written by Ron Loewy, which also provided many suggestions and extensive technical support.

This help file was written using the Olson / HyperAct HyperText Suite.