Can a user edit an html help file?

[Robin_Dee]

Does anyone know if there is a way for the end user to add topics to a generated html help file (chm file)?

Robin

[Peter Grainge]

I don't know of a way to actually add topics in the way you describe and doubt it can be done.

On my site you will find a topic about customer links. Using that you can have one link in any or all of the topics. Normally not visible but seen when a javascript file is completed. The links would point to whatever is required. They would be set up by the System Administrator though, not the ultimate end user.

There is a program called KnowHow, described on my site, that might help.

[Robin_Dee]

Thanks so much - this is exactly what I was looking for.

Have a nice day!

Robin

[johnmccallum]

Robin,

What we do with our help file is to have a topic that links to an external .htm or .doc file. This topic is listed as Local Users Info. There is a paragraph explaining that the user may provide an "user.doc" or "user.htm" for their own topic and links to these files. Of course, they won't work if the user does not provide the files but we did this in answer to some users that wanted to add their own protocols or technical information to our help. The few people that use it like it.

John

[Captiv8r]

Hey John

Out of curiosity, do you provide special Index keywords or TOC pointers to these? If so, what do they say?

Cheers... Rick

[Robin_Dee]

Thanks, John and Peter - I'll try these suggestions out in the next few days. Until then, I'm still kind of lost!

Robin

[Peter Grainge]

Robin

In your previous post you said it was exactly what you were looking for and now you say you are lost. That loses me. What changed?

[Robin_Dee]

I'm not lost really. We needed to respond to a new customer who was asking if they would be able to edit the help files. The information about 'how' to do it was what I was looking for because it showed that it was possible. But I can't really picture what John was explaining, so until I actually try to implement these suggestions, I'm in uncharted territory!

Robin

[johnmccallum]

Rick,

I don't put anything in the index (yeah, what would I call it?) but there is a TOC link called "Local Users Info." I only did this for a small supplementary application - about ten topics - so it stands out in the TOC. Our main software product has around 500 topics and I doubt a user would even notice this if I added it.

A few days ago Sarah Fleet posted a question about showing links only if the external file exists. I wanted to do that with this - partly so I could offer many different file formats without confounding the user. Curious how you do that in version X5.

Robin,

If it would help I can email you an example. Just click on my name to email me.

John