Programmers have long known that a proper help system is an essential part of any program. I was anxious to review RoboHelp because I’ve never gotten around to trying it out—a mistake on my part, I now know. I should have looked at it a long time ago, because it would have made much of my work as a programmer easier.
Programmers must design a program so it responds quickly to the experienced user. Unfortunately, the way to do that involves eliminating everything unnecessary from the screen. That lets the experienced user zoom through navigation and data entry.
But what happens to the new user, or to an experienced user entering an unfamiliar part of the program? That’s where the help file comes in. Tutorials, definitions, self-running demos, step-by-step instructions, and tips and tricks can all enter into the well-written help file.
Meeting the needs of all potential users can require a wide variety of help techniques. Without a good tool, creating help files can add significantly to the programmer’s burden. Fortunately, RoboHelp is available. RoboHelp has been the gold standard of help tools for many years. The newest version, X3, continues that dominance by adding a number of significant new features.
Over the years, different help file formats have evolved. The original Windows 3 help file has morphed into an HTML format; there are different formats for JavaHelp and Oracle Help; there is another kind for reading in browsers. RoboHelp creates all of these formats, and can even create all of them from one source file, with one click.
To begin with, you can edit your help files with RoboHelp’s editor, Word, or any popular HTML editor. Documents with a table of contents and index can be easily converted, automatically, to help documents. But RoboHelp can automatically create the index and TOC even if they’re missing. You can add search features, a glossary, hyperlinks, pop-up definitions, and more.
When you’ve added all your features, you can use the same file to create WebHelp (readable by any browser), HTML help (Microsoft’s current standard), WinHelp (Microsoft’s previous standard), JavaHelp, Oracle Help, and printed documentation. You can also link the help to your programming project for context-sensitive help.
It’s sometimes necessary to create slightly different versions of a help file—to have different levels for beginner and professional versions, for example. You can mark sections, or even individual characters, as conditional and they’ll show in your project in a different color. When you compile the project, only the designated text will go into each help file. You can include multimedia files (avi, mpg, etc.) in the output, and demos created with RoboDemo, another of the company’s products.
You can easily create pop-up text, drop-down lists, or expanding text—all the sophisticated extras that make a help file look professional. RoboHelp includes all the standard tools you’d expect to find: spell checker; WYSIWIG or actual code editing, and style sheets for formatting. You can create style sheets on the fly from documents you’ve already created, and if you use Word, you can map styles in RoboHelp to styles in Word so the printed documentation automatically formats itself.
When you’re using conditional text—which will vary depending on the particular version of the file you’re creating—you have extraordinary editing power. You can mark conditional text down to the paragraph and even the character level. You can overlap the marking, too, so some material can be used in multiple outputs without having to put it in all your outputs.
You can set preferences for each particular level and save them, so subsequent builds are pain-free. You can also "batch process" multiple outputs at once, so you can select, for example, printed documentation and Windows help file and generate both with one click.
When creating context-sensitive help, the auto-map feature creates instant IDs for all topics. You can import a map file or mark topics individually, then map them to a help section. There’s a context-sensitive help test tool, to ensure that your context-sensitive help works the way you designed it—before you distribute it to your customers.
A programmer puts a lot of effort into how his application looks. And you can "skin" the help files you create in RoboHelp to make them match your application. You can even generate help that complies with Section 508, the US standard for accessibility by disabled persons.
All in all, RoboHelp Office X3 gives you all the tools you could ask for to create professional-looking help files that enhance your application—and your reputation.
RoboHelp X3
List Price: $999
Upgrade: $499
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
