Help 'File tool

[ASTDan]

Hello,

I have been using Microsoft's HTLM Help Workshop to create help files.

Is there something better?

What do people use to create and manage their help documentation.

Thanks

Dan

[crelf]

What do people use to create and manage their help documentation.

It depends on what you mean by "help documentation" - we use an internal tool (written in LabVIEW of course) that compiles chm file for all our reuse libraries, but we have word templates for user manuals for systems and visio templates for quick reference guides (example below).

Quick Reference Guide Example.pdf

[ASTDan]

It depends on what you mean by "help documentation" - we use an internal tool (written in LabVIEW of course) that compiles chm file for all our reuse libraries, but we have word templates for user manuals for systems and visio templates for quick reference guides (example below).

I have been creating html files in word and the compiling them in .chm. Then I have a "Help" in the meunu bar that points to the .chm. Right now I just put operator help. This is for exe I develop for my customers. For the project I am working on right now I want to put links in the .chm file to pdf of the manuals for the hardware the customer is using. My idea is to have documentation that lives with the program. This way it is easier for the customer to manage. I have gotten some positive feedback on this.

The software I develop is no where near the scope of what you take on, however you have made me think about other documentation I could be including. So what other documentation do people release with their executable i.e. help files, user manuals, bom, etc

[Rolf Kalbermatter]

Quite some time ago I played with HelpMaker from Vizacc software. The interesting things about this package were the ability to use the LabVIEW generated RTF as starting input, the possibility to create both help files and documentation from the same sources and it's being free. Haven't followed up on that completely since there had been other projects that were more pressing or tempting since.

Seems Vizacc got into some serious disagreements with the original developers and they are redesigning the software currently from ground up in C++, while the original software was written in Delphi. And they seem to not want to give it away for free anymore once the new C++ version is released (when?). So using that software may be now a bit of a timebomb it seems.