Copyright: Herd Software Development 1995-96


Please read this carefully...

It is strongly recommended that you browse the introductory helpfile before proceeding, even if you are not the kind of person who ordinarily browses README files.  There are many unusual and unique features in this help system which you will only find by “happy accident” if you don’t at least browse the introduction.

Click the Contents button to jump to the introductory menu now.


Welcome to the ThinHelp utilities

ThinHelp is one of the new breed of Help and Viewer aftermarket authoring kits designed to add significant flexibility and creative impact to your projects.  Before proceeding we recommend that you familiarize yourself with a few important features of the ThinHelp utilities and the help system.

Printing the helpfiles

Although we would naturally prefer you to conserve resources and work as paperless as possible, print capability is included with this package so that you can create hard copies of the Help system.  ThinHelp includes an evaluation version of Help to RTF which is limited for handling other helpfiles but fully functional for converting and printing the ThinHelp help system.  Use the Print Some or All Topics... item under the File menu of the Help system to print all or part of the current helpfile.

The help system

The help system for ThinHelp consists of a number of individual, interlinked files each with its own table of contents and designed to function as an integrated whole for optimum flexibility and ease of navigation.  The ThinHelp utilities (including the Push hypergraphics editor and the ForeHelp interface and editor) include their own online help which in turn is integrated into the other ThinHelp modules.

Each file in the system includes the same drop-down Tools menu for quickly accessing the most-used resources and references.  Each file can also be accessed through its own Table of Contents menu.

Full-text search

ThinHelp’s help system includes full-text search capability for both for Windows 3.1 and Windows 95 users. Windows 3.1/3.11 users can use the Find button to execute full-text searches on the entire Help system.

Experienced Help and Viewer authors working with Microsoft Word-based authoring tools may want to start with the demo guide which contains click-and-copy macro examples and embedded window statement template strings.

CD vs. downloadable or floppy disk distributions

The CD version of ThinHelp contains additional resources such as complete Viewer and Help source files for the help system, the Knit Picker for ThinHelp hypertext graphics libraries, and may contain other materials at the publisher’s discretion.  The most important of these extras are made available for download from the Herd Software Development home page on the World Wide Web.

ForeHelp users

Special focus has been given to ForeHelp users in the online guide and tutorial.  Even if you only skim the remainder of the material, it is strongly suggested that you pay careful attention to the subtopic sections preceded by the ForeHelp icon shown at the start of this paragraph.  These sections outline both the special added functionality available to ForeHelp users and a few limitations of ForeHelp which will require attention when applying ThinHelp’s macros and embedded window functions in your Help projects.

Features marked with this icon are either not ForeHelp compatible or will require manual editing to implement.  Details will be provided wherever this icon appears.

Quick-start pointer

Before authoring your own implementations of ThinHelp macros and embedded windows based on your knowledge of the product, browse the THDEMOS.HLP helpfile to see if the implementation you want is shown here.  If it is, and there are either problems with its implementation or points you should watch out for, you’ll save yourself a lot of debugging by knowing in advance what you can and can’t expect.

Taking shortcuts in your authoring

In a word, don’t.  This guide has been carefully prepared to provide you with working examples and templates for easy insertion and editing into your own Help projects.  You should find getting “up to speed” with ThinHelp as quick and easy as is possible for a tool of this nature if you use the provided samples as template text for your authoring.

Let ThinHelp’s help system do the thinking for you and focus on applying the styles and techniques.  You’ll find your authoring will be a lot more bug-free and reliable if you do.

Some of the methods used in this helpfile may add a small bit of superfluous text to your macros and embedded window statements, but it will be easier and faster to work with the supplied examples than to be faced with having to troubleshoot shortcuts you might feel you can take in the authoring process.  Superfluous text, such as “unnecessary” path referencing and file extensions, are included for valid reasons.

Pay careful attention to path syntax and upper/lower case characters, applying upper and lower case exactly as shown in the demos and examples.

Moving and removing files from the installation

While this is a relatively large installation for a tool of this type, we recommend that you not erase or move any of its files.  If, for example, you wished to create a subdirectory for the Push utility and move its files and helpfiles into it, you would lose the interlinking ability of PUSH.HLP.

Updates and appendices to the help system

Updated versions of THUPDATE.HLP containing news of new features, bug reports, authoring tips and other useful information for ThinHelp authors may be posted to the Herd Software Development Web site at irregular intervals.

Thanks for your patience...


About to launch Help to RTF...

All files in ThinHelp’s help system include complete, uncrippled functionality with our Help to RTF conversion software for allowing you to create Word-compatible documentation from helpfiles including all bitmaps and embedded window objects.  This feature is reserved exclusively for helpfiles included with Herd Software Development products.  For complete functionality with all helpfiles you will need to own a license to Help to RTF Standard or Help to RTF Pro.

You can use the evaluation version of Help to RTF included in this package to create printable documentation from any of the included helpfiles and optionally load the appropriate helpfile directly into Help to RTF by selecting the Print Some or All Topics... item from each helpfile’s File menu.

Select one of the following:

♦ Launch Help to RTF ♦
♦ Learn more about Help to RTF ♦