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Creating Effective JavaHelp
book

Creating Effective JavaHelp

by Kevin Lewis
June 2000
Intermediate to advanced content levelIntermediate to advanced
192 pages
4h 53m
English
O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Content preview from Creating Effective JavaHelp

Understanding the Files in a HelpSet

Each online help project (such as the Aviation project previously illustrated) is implemented as a set of files, called the HelpSet . A HelpSet includes HTML-format topic files along with JavaHelp-specific configuration files.

The HelpSet includes three kinds of files:

  • HelpSet data files

  • Navigation files

  • Topic files

HelpSet data files contain overall information about the structure and content of the HelpSet. These are text files, structured in Extensible Markup Language (XML) format. There are two HelpSet data files:

  • The HelpSet file, with filename suffix .hs, is the HelpSet’s “master control” file. It specifies the navigation components to be used, along with the files that configure the navigation components. It also specifies the HelpSet’s map file.

    Don’t confuse the similar terms HelpSet file and HelpSet. The HelpSet is the set of all files in a particular project; the HelpSet file is the project’s master control file.

  • The map file, with filename suffix .jhm, assigns a map ID (shorthand name) to each help topic. It maps ID strings to the uniform resource locators (URLs) of topic files. The HelpSet file and navigation files always use map IDs to refer to help topics; they never use the topic’s URLs directly.

The navigation files configure the HelpSet’s TOC, index, and word-search index. The TOC and index files (also in XML format) are similar in structure. The JavaHelp system reads the information in these files to know what to display in the ...

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Publisher Resources

ISBN: 1565927192Supplemental ContentCatalog PageErrata