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Subject:Dreamweaver to create HTML Help? From:"Hart, Geoff" <Geoff-H -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Thu, 1 Mar 2001 15:52:13 -0500
Sybille Sterk would <<... like to use Dreamweaver to create
"browser-independent" HTML help. Does anybody on the list use Dreamweaver
for this purpose? Any tips and tricks you'd like to share would be very
welcome.>>
I'm not sure that Dreamweaver's the right tool for the job. First off, you
have to distinguish between a file containing helpful information presented
in HTML format (which is what Dreamweaver would inherently create) and
actual HTMLHelp; the latter has various features that aren't present in
simple HTML (e.g., context IDs so that the software can link directly to the
correct topic at the press of a button by the user). I don't doubt that you
could fake HTMLHelp features using straight HTML, but it would be far more
awkward than using a dedicated tool like RoboHelp or ForeHelp. Among other
things, you'd need an additional tool such as HTML Indexer to create a
useful index.
Second, there's no such thing as "browser independence" unless you stick to
very simple, very vanilla HTML. That's actually a reasonably good design
decision from the user's standpoint, but be aware that you also sacrifice
some of the more powerful features of HTML (e.g., CSS) by doing so.
--Geoff Hart, FERIC, Pointe-Claire, Quebec
geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca
"User's advocate" online monthly at
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