Need Help with ForeHelp

[Moshe Koenig <alsacien -at- NETVISION -dot- NET -dot- IL>]

I have used ForeHelp for quite some time and have been fairly happy
with it, despite my one major complaint: the mysterious way it has
of breeding .TMP files that later are indispensable to the Help
project. The product's documentation doesn't begin to clue the user
as to what these files are all about or how to coexist with them.

Recently, a project came my way that required me to create a contents
tree for Windows 3.11 so that the appearance would be very close to
Windows 95 (due for the coming version). To do so, I used bitmap
pictures of a closed book, an open book, and a topic for icons and
made jumps to a secondary window, where the text appeared. Doing so
seemed innocent enough -- until I tried to compile it! The next thing
I knew, I got a tidal wave of warnings (No. 1292, for anyone in the
know -- I'm not) that eventually filled the buffer's limit and stopped
the compiling. I discovered that ForeHelp had generated literally
hundreds of .TMP files that the compiler did not recognize; these
files took up more than 10MB on my disk! I called up the .RTF file to
examine it in Word, and ForeHelp had replaced the bitmap names with
FHnnnnnn.TMP files in the .RTF file. I then had to write a macro to
get rid of these files, had to reinsert the bitmap codes manually,
and then attached a RoboHelp template to compile the file with RoboHelp
instead of ForeHelp. The end result was what I wanted, but I was
alarmed that I may have to continue this project "flying blind" in
RoboHelp.

I used RoboHelp long before I knew ForeHelp existed, but the wysiwyg
aspect of ForeHelp simplifies life a lot. However, I don't know why
these .TMP files kept cropping up (I made several attempts in the
hopes of continuing my work in ForeHelp, all in vain). The thought
of continuing the entire project in RoboHelp makes me weak-kneed. It's
not as if I can't work with the .RTF codes -- I've done it for years --
but I don't see why I should be forced to unless the problem is
insurmountable.

Let me state that I cope with workaround tasks on a daily basis. If
that's what it takes, fine, just as long as I get to choose my tool
for the lion's share of the work.

Any suggestions?

- Moshe

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