What is HTML Help

The Microsoft's HTML Help program is an alternative to the current Windows Help system. The final version of the program uses Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0 or higher, an ActiveX component and HTML files to display help topics, a table of contents and a subject index. The following screen shot shows expanded HTML Help window. You can click the hide button to hide the "Content/Index/Search" half of the window.

Features

With the HTML Help system you will be able to

• add a Java applets to a help topic,
• use an ActiveX component in a help topic,
• display animated GIF graphics,
• link to and display an Internet or Intranet web page,
• compress the HTML help files into a single file for easier distribution,
• launch an application from a hyperlink, button or image in the help topic.

You can also use the HTML Help ActiveX component to create a table of contents and index for your website, but only the those people that have Internet Explorer (or Netscape with the ActiveX plug-in) and the ActiveX, will be able to view the Keyword Index and Table of Contents. The downloadable HTML Help file also contains a Java applet that can display the table of content and keyword index.

The HTML Help Workshop program contains an interesting and relatively new interface feature. One of the tabbed dialog boxes has a "help" tab that contains an HTML help topic for the dialog (see below). One can navigate to other help topic by clicking the hyperlinks in the default help topic. While this is an interesting design feature, we are somewhat uncertain about its usefulness and usability.

 

Assessment

The HTML Help systems has become a viable alternative to the Windows Help system. Many of the companies that developed Windows Help authoring software have now developed programs for authoring HTML Help projects. With HTML Help Workshop you can combine and compress all HTML help topic files into a single file. This will make it much easier to distribute you help files.