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John Cornellier wrote: "In MS's "HTML" Help and Sun's JavaHelp you can also
add a link to a (hard coded) file name (e.g. called mynotes.html) the
contents of which the user can edit, and it'll appear in the help without
the need for recompiling."
This solution (and a recent solution that suggested using a .txt file) puts
an onus on the user to edit and save (and not move or rename) a file --
that's a big margin for error, and a lot of clickthrough. And the help
system wouldn't be able to tell the user which topics have saved comments
and which don't -- the user would have to click every link in every topic to
find out.
Can anyone think of a solution that doesn't have this risk? The only one I
can think of is to deploy the help on a server, and install a local database
or spreadsheet on the client machine.
Here's a simple use case: The user clicks a "comment" link in a help topic
that opens an ASP page (or whatever). The ASP page presents a textbox. The
user types the comments and clicks save. The ASP page saves the comment in a
local database. The next time the user opens the page, it detects if there's
a comment and lets the user know (with an icon, or something).
And who's got the time and coin to build something like that?!? Go with
"vanilla" WinHelp!
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