Doc2Help Authors Please Help!

[Jane Bergen <janeb -at- ANSWERSOFT -dot- COM>]

We need some help from those of you who use Doc-to-Help 1.6 for
writing context-sensitive online help with aliases.

In this example, we have two help topic IDs from the programmers
that we want mapped to the same topic. For example:

HID_MIRROR_DISPLAY_FONT=0x18010
HID_MIRROR_PRINT_FONT=0x18006

My understanding from the Doc-to-Help manual and the D2H folks is
that to create context sensitive help with an alias (we have more
than one feature we want to map to a single help topic), we SHOULD
write the.hpj file as this:

[ALIAS]
HID_MIRROR_DISPLAY_FONT=0x18006

[MAP]
HelpContents1   1       ; Help Contents
ScriptingOverview.2     131197  ; Scripting Overview
PrinterFont.SettingsMenu..48    0x18006 ; Printer Font  (Settings Menu)

BUT IT DOESN'T WORK! When the .rtf file and the .hpj are included in
the build it appears to compile successfully. The user does get
context sensitive help when he or she wants help for the second help
ID, but the first one produces the message "Help topic not found."

If, however, we do it as this:

[ALIAS]
HID_MIRROR_DISPLAY_FONT=PrinterFont.SettingsMenu..48

[MAP]
HelpContents1   1       ; Help Contents
ScriptingOverview.2     131197  ; Scripting Overview
PrinterFont.SettingsMenu..48    0x18006 ; Printer Font  (Settings Menu)

Then it works just fine. The problem is that the string
"PrinterFont.SettingsMenu..48"
changes. It may be "PrinterFont.SettingsMenu..52" if we add more
topics. Thus the whole help file is broken unless we manually change
every alias. BTW....The programmers refuse to change their source
files. They say it's OUR (tech writers') problem.

So, I'm asking for help from this list. I've never been disappointed
with the quality or quantity of help you have provided..... I'm even
willing to endure some flames for this long message or from some
veterans for asking what may be a no-brainer question. It would be
MOST helpful if you could provide an example of a real .hpj file
that works so we could see exactly how you did it!

Thank you, thank you, thank you,

Jane Bergen


............................................................................
 Jane Bergen
 Technical Writer
 janeb -at- answersoft -dot- com   or   janeb -at- iadfw -dot- net
    "The difference between the right word and the almost right word
     is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug" (Mark Twain)
............................................................................