true cross-platform html help

[Mary Choy <mchoy -at- SIRIUS -dot- COM>]

oh boy, i am bumming. help!

i've written an html help system in robohelp for html using their feature to
send it to Webhelp format at the end. the help system (along with the
software) sits on a server in Texas. clients worldwide are going to access
the product and its help system from IE 4.x or NS 4.x on pc's, laptops, old
macs, and imacs.

we've just discovered:

a) it loads slow as hell on netscape 4.x. i mean SLOW. and when i click a
page, the right frame only shows a few lines of the topic text and then
displays Transfer Interrupt!

b) on ie4x on imac, it only loads the titles "content" and "index" in the
left frame. the right frame shows only the default topic, no others.

c) on ns4x on imac, it loads the toc beautifully, but 1/2 second flashes the
actual topic text -- 1/2 second and then it's all grey on the right frame.

i've got one week to fix this. the VP of engineering believes this webhelp
thing is too high-tech, and i'll need to redo the system in straight html,
with a non-cascading toc in the left frame. which means a lot of work, plus
it MUST have an index, so time to dig up html indexing threads off the list.

does anyone have any advice?

and to top it off, i have to leave for the airport in about 15 minutes, so
i'll be off email then for about 4 hours. (a long time when you are
stressing about a start-up project like this!)

best,
/mary

Mary Choy, Technical Writer
mchoy -at- sirius -dot- com
phone 415.876.4418, cell 415.860.5679

 From ??? -at- ??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000=