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Online Help Files

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PCQ Bureau
New Update
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For a user using your application, a well-planned online help system is his first stop for technical support. You can create online help (HLP) files either by using tools from programming languages, or by one of many specialized software tools and shareware applications available for this. We’ll use one such application –Sevensteps 3.1. After the HLP file is ready, we’ll use VB to link it to our VB application. (The trial version of Sevensteps is available for free download at

www.sevensteps.com. Visual Basic Working Edition is available on our September 2000 CD. You’ll also need to install IE 5 or above.)

Step 1: Get started

When you install and start Sevensteps, you’ll see a dialog box with two tabs. Click on the Create new Help Project tab to start a new project and enter a name for your Project file.

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That will lead you to the main interface with seven tabs: Project guide, Topic list, Help composer, Publisher, Publication, Help, and Exit. Select Project Guide and you’ll come across a window with seven heads. These are the seven stages you pass through in creating online help.

The different functions are also categorized under four roles: Project leader, author, developer, and domain. The Project leader ensures the timely delivery of online help and related processes. The author is responsible for creating the contents of various topics in your help system. The domain expert reviews the contents and the developer is responsible for linking the help system with the applications. The features available for a particular user are marked in purple.

Sevensteps also comes with a few built-in Word documents and Excel sheets that help you plan and organize your help system. You can use these to gather information and document what you plan to do.

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Step 2. Create topics

From the Project guide, click on the activity Write and select Author as the role. Now from the list of activities under the Write tab, select Write Task>Write Task now.

This will open the New Topics dialog box. Enter a name for the topic you want to create and select a Topic type. The topic types available are: About, Action, Module, Problem, Question, Task, Update, and User Group. So, for example, if you wish to introduce your application then select ‘About’ as the Topic type; to introduce a change select Update and so on. Now click on the Create button to add the topic to the Topic list.

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After you have created topic names for your application, it’s time to write the text for those topics. Double click the respective topic from the Topic list and you access the Topic Editor with a few sub-heads. These sub-heads vary depending on the topic types you’ve selected. For example, if you’ve created a topic with Update as the topic type, you’ll see two sub-heads ‘What’s new’ and ‘Explanation’ in the topic editor. You can also change these to something of your choice by going to the Publication menu on the navigation tab and selecting Customize topics.

Now type the text in the appropriate sections. You can also add images, tables, and

hyperlinks.

To customize the appearance of your help file, go to the Publication menu and select Customize visual appearance. You can change the font, background color, text color, etc, from here.

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Step 3: Create table of contents

After creating and composing all the topics for your help file, it is time to organize these under different heads and create a table of contents. To do this, go to Project Guide and select Write>Create Contents>Create Contents now. This will open the Topic list with the Help Composer. The Help Composer is used to create the structure of your help file. You’ll see a predefined structure, which can be changed. You can also add, delete or rename the books (a list of help topics can be grouped together into one book) created here.

To add a book, type the name of the book in Books field type box. Now to merge this book to one of the already available books, select the book to which you wish to add this book and click on the Sub button. The next step is to add appropriate topics to the books. Select the book to which you wish to add a topic and drag-n-drop the respective topics from the Topics List to the Selected book area in the Help Composer. Likewise, add the rest of the topics to the respective books.

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Step 4: Create Index

You can also create an index for your help file based on certain keywords so that when a user clicks on a keyword, a dialog box appears with all the topics associated with it. To create an index, click on the Index tab in the Help Composer. Type a keyword in the Keywords text field and click on the Main tab to add it to the list. Click on the Sub tab to add a sub keyword to the main one. To add appropriate topics to keywords, select the keyword and drag-n-drop the topics from the Topic List to the ‘Relevant topics for selected keywords’ area.

Step 5: Create help assistants

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A help assistant is a small help window that appears when you click the F1 key in an application. Help assistants have links to certain topics and it’s a good idea to group the important topics here for fast access. 



To create a help assistant, go to the Project Guide and select Step 3. Click on Create help assistants> Create help assistants now. You’ll come across the Help Composer with the help assistants tab. Type a name for the window in the Windows field and click on the Add button to add it to the window list. Now from the Topic list, drag-n-drop the relevant topics to the ‘Topics for selected window’ area in Help Composer. You’ll also need to add a help code, such as 1000, or a help string, which can be used by the developer to link the help assistant with the application. To add a code, click the Open tab in the Help Composer and add a code and a string in the respective fields here.

Step 6: Publish your HLP file

Now it’s time to publish your online help. Click on the Publisher tab in the navigation menu. Here you have the option to compile your help file in WinHelp or HTML form. Select a format and click on the Show me button to view your help file.

Step 7: Link your hlp file to your application

Once you have your HLP file ready, it’s time to link it to your application. The process for this will vary depending on the programming language used. You can either set a help file for the whole application and evoke it by pressing the F1 key. Or, you can create a Help menu, define sub-menus for the various topics and then link the various help topics to the menu items.

Instead of creating menu items here, we’ll use VB to link our help file to our entire application. Open your VB application and click on Project>Project Properties. In the Help File Name field enter the complete path to your help file, such as C:\My Sevensteps Projects\PCQLabs Online manuals. Now whenever anyone presses the F1 key in your application, they will be presented with the help file you just created. You can also invoke the help assistant by entering its code in the Project Help Context ID field in Project Properties. 

Neelima Vaid

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