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Subject:RE: winhelp or html help? From:"Giordano, Connie" <Connie -dot- Giordano -at- FMR -dot- COM> To:"'Linda McCulloch-Smith'" <LindaM -dot- Smith -at- accumap -dot- com>, TECHWR-L <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Thu, 15 Jun 2000 11:00:21 -0400
Linda,
There are some pro's and con's to each:
Is your application residing on a server or on the workstation? The reason
I ask is that if it's residing on the server, you cannot use .chm
files--everytime a user accesses help, they will get a "do you want to
download" dialog. Pain in the next for browser-based applications residing
on a web server.
However, if it's on the server, you can generate a Webhelp output directory,
and you won't have to worry about what DLL or OCX files the workstation has.
If the app is on the workstation, just make sure the installation routines
provide the appropriate system files, and they won't get the error. The
specifics are in the Robohelp documentation.
Hope this helps a little
Connie Giordano
-----Original Message-----
From: Linda McCulloch-Smith [mailto:LindaM -dot- Smith -at- accumap -dot- com]
Sent: Thursday, June 15, 2000 10:22 AM
To: TECHWR-L
Subject: winhelp or html help?
Hi Folks:
I am going to be writing online help for a product that currently uses
WinHelp. We are thinking of switching to HTML Help. More than 45% of our
users are running Windows 95. The number of users running Windows 98 and NT
4.0 is increasing, but only about 1% are using Windows 2000.
I tested a .chm file on this machine (Windows NT 4.0, Service Pack 6.0, IE
4.0, v. 4.72.3110.8). When I tried to open the file, I got a message saying
that I need a newer version of HHCTRL.OCX. I can fix this problem on my
machine. However, the problem got me wondering whether I should contemplate
HTML Help under these circumstances. If I have this problem, the users may
too.
