If you are a programmer, your important projects would likely be improved by adding a Help system to your applications. If you need to get a lot of detailed information to others, there are other options in RoboHelp to get that job done as well. The results will both amaze and please you. Creating these types of informational systems can be a daunting task. You need powerful tools to help you create eye pleasing and functionally operational help and information systems.
About six years ago I reviewed RoboHelp v4. It was a pleasure getting acquainted and using it to create a help system for a current project. It worked very well and the results were very pleasing. It included a help file as well as contact sensitive help on the major components within the program. One would not have wanted to create such a system by hand. It would have been impossible.
RoboHelp uses Word as its authoring platform. X3 also uses Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 5 or later as well. The choice of which to use is determined by the environment in which your project will be placed. RoboHelp uses a single Help project from which various finished Help Systems can be generated. Examples of environments would include Windows, or Unix and various programming languages or perhaps a Web-Based application.
The installation went smoothly. As with most applications, the installation was on CD. It was an "auto run upon loading" operation. The first thing asked for was the serial number that was printed on the CD case. An auto detection determined which version of Microsoft Word was on my system. RoboHelp was looking for Word 97, 2000, or XP. No other information was asked for. My Name and Business information was automatically added by the install program. The installation was begun and in short order a RoboHelp Starter icon was sitting on my Desktop. A reboot of my system was the next order of business.
As I begin to explore RoboHelp X3, it is evident that major improvements have been made, and additional functionality added. I’m not going to make a side-by-side comparison between these two versions, but the front ends are worlds apart. Version 4 had two options; open a new or existing project in either Win95 or Win3.1. That’s all folks. It did the job. Version X3 begins with a window they call "RoboHelp Starter."
Starting RoboHelp Starter
This is the launching point for RoboHelp. The user can create a new project, open an existing project, or import a file. A set of interesting tools is available to get a project going from other sources. There are a lot of choices here. Each of the four mentioned topics represents a tab on the interface.
The New Project tab offers choices from which the user selects the type of help project he needs to author: WebHelp Enterprise, if you own that product, WebHelp, HTML Help, JavaHelp, Oracle Help, and WinHelp.
The Import Project tab imports Microsoft HTML Help Project files, Word Documents, Framemaker Documents, WinHelp files, and WinHelp Project files.
The Tools Tab offers fifteen interesting utilities. Find HTML Help Components, Find HTML Help Files, Graphic Locator, Help to Source, HTML Help Registration, HTML Help Studio, ReSize, Smart Publishing, and WinHelp Bug Hunt are some of them. There’s even a Software Video Camera. That sounds very interesting. This utility records screen actions as AVI files, which can be added to HTML and WinHelp files.
The fourth Tab is "Open an Existing Project." Here is found a list of project files in a selected directory, and the date when each was last opened.
So let’s select something from the first tab, "New Project." Selecting the WinHelp option from the presented list starts the ball rolling.
The RoboHelp Starter window closes and two more windows open. One is the RoboHelp Explorer, the second window is the New Project Wizard. This window presents 16 Help System Templates. A short description of each option helps in determining which you will select. I’m clicking on the Visual Basic Help. This jump-starts my project by presetting settings that are most common for Visual Basic applications. One of the other 15 templates would do the same for such applications as Excel, Visual FoxPro, several versions of C and C++, Powerbuilder, Pascal, and so fourth.
The next step in the New Project Wizard asks for a systems target, WinHelp 3 (Windows 3.1) or WinHelp 4 (Win 95, 98 & NT). We’re sticking with WinHelp 4.
The third window in the Wizard wants some project specifics: The Title of the Help Project, Project File name, where the Project should be stored, and what language. Two check boxes allow one to create WinHelp 2000 Explorer View and enable WebSearch functions.
That is the end of the Wizard settings. Clicking on the Finish key sends your hard drive into a flurry of activity. The RoboHelp Explorer window comes alive and a new iteration of Word is run. Everything is now ready to begin creating the Help files for a new project. This takes far longer to read about than it does to do.
The Help Explorer Window is preloaded with a number of Folders. These folders organize your new project. The Topics folder controls all of your topics. These are the heart of your Help Project and link everything together.
Other folders include Project, Images and Multimedia, and Dependencies. Each of them is populated with varying numbers of Sub Folders. Each of these subfolders organizes various sub components of the folder under which they are found. The last item, the "Single Source" folder, contains 7 wizards. Here you’ll find the tools to generate your final Project output. You can select from WinHelp 3 or 4, Microsoft HTML Help, WebHelp, JavaHelp, and Printed Documentation.
RoboHelp enables the Help Project author to generate a "Diagnostics Report. This report reveals any problems that maybe present in your source document. You want to run this before you do any major compiles of your project. It can save you a lot of headaches. The Diagnostic Program checks for any missing documents, Map Files, Images, Baggage files, Image Folders, DLL’s, HTML files, and unused Map ID’s, topics without IP’s, Duplicate ID’s, Topics in more than one Window, and Content Topics. You’ll sleep much better knowing all is well. Many additional reports are available, some of which are: Table of Contents, Topic Properties, Saving, Project Status and Viewing.
I started a second project to check out the templates of RoboHelp X3. Here is a screen shot of the compiled, ready to use, Help file generated by RoboHelp. This project only took about one hour to get it to this stage. Most of that time was spent hunting and formatting the articles put into it. RoboHelp only took a few minutes of that time.
Figure 1: Compiled help file running.
This project was created using RoboHelp’s Online Books Template. In one click most of the folders seen in the left pane, were automatically generated. This graphic shows all of the Book Chapters clicked open so their contents are visible. An online book is a stand-alone help file and a great way to organize information for future reference by all who may need access to it. As a former Special Interest Group (SIG) leader for Visual Basic, this would have been a fantastic way of disseminating handouts for each SIG meeting.
From the point RoboHelp hands over the design of the project to you, it is a small learning curve to learn how to create new topics and jumps, and manage them. As the project grows, it is easy to navigate through your source file. It can become quite large in short order. Using Word’s Scroll bar can become tedious and difficult as you try to visually find a specific point in a document. Clicking on any topic in the RoboHelp Explorer positions that topic in Word quickly and precisely.
Clicking on this Icon, which you might be able to spot in the graphic below, displays a second pane in the RoboHelp Window.
Figure 2: RoboHelp Explorer with second pane displayed.
Notice the tabs at the bottom of both panes. You get a complete overview of your project by using them. The Topics view in the right pane shows all the topics that you have created and they are in the Word Doc file where you have been developing them. Clicking on any of these topics will jump you to that section in your Word Document and you can begin/ continue to develop that topic. Notice the top item in the right pane. The Icon of the question mark does not have a colored background. (If the process of printing this newsletter does not reveal this differentiation let it be known that Review Structures is different.) This distinguishes such marked topics as being in the Word Doc but not in the project after it is compiled into the final Help file. To get such topics into the game, you simply click on it and drag it to the left pane and place it into the location of you choice. The item in the right pane will now have the colored background indicating it is now in the project and will be compiled into the final Help File. I found this to be a well conceived approach to controlling topics and maintaining your sanity when dealing with medium to large projects. It’s not unappreciated in small projects either.
Clicking on this same icon button a second time closes the sec ond pane, and you are back to seeing just the left pane of the RoboHelp Explorer.
Figure 3: Options box for controlling actions in RoboHelp Explorer
There are a lot of choices you can make to fine tune RoboHelp to run just right the way you want it too. Figure 3 shows just the General Tab’s contents. There are eight more of them.
As an experiment, I imported this document into my VBCode Reference test project. The import process involves selecting a document to import, namely this one. You have two options here, copying the document to the Project Folder, or adding a Document as a read-only RTF file. (Of course your import document has to be a RTF file in the first place.) You are then offered 15 options that affect the import process.
The imported file now appears as a topic in the right pane of RoboHelp Explorer. Dragging it to the left pane places it into the project as part of any final compilation. Pretty slick.
You can take images in your help files a step further by creating Hot spots on them that will activate Pop-up windows. You can put descriptive text in these Pop-ups. I’m sure you have used this functionality in other Help Files and wondered how this was done. It’s done with tools. RoboHelp includes these tools.
We have covered a lot ground in this review. I have found the latest version of RoboHelp to be such a de light to use. When you have a tool like RoboHelp, creating Help Files is no longer such a chore that you’d just as soon not do the Help thing. Now you can concentrate on the creative experience.
Independent reviewers from many sources have given it glowing reviews, and top choice awards. Some of them include, Visual Basic Programmers Journal, Deloitte and Touche, Delphi Informant, Windows Magazine, and Information Week. We have focused on the RoboHelp Word Component in this review. The HTML Component works similarly but in the Internet Explorer platform. There is much depth to this program. Not all of it could be reviewed in the short space allowed us for this article. A demo program is available from eHelp.com, along with additional information which will give you a hands on experience. Take advantage of these resources to get a complete look and feel for this excellent program.
A press release from eHelp at the time of the release of this product sets the pricing of RoboHelp as ranging from $469 to $1899.
RoboHelp X3
EHelp Corporation
10590 W Ocean Air Drive
San Diego, CA 92130
800-859-5292
System Requirements:
Windows 98 or later
Internet Explorer 5.0 or later)
Microsoft Word (MS Word 2000 or XP is required for RoboHelp HTML to import Word Documents and using the "Printed Documents" features.
Pentium II 300MHz or higher
RAM: Minimum 128 MB
200 MB available Disk Space
