In these "lessons," you'll either teach yourself or follow along in class how to do specific tasks in an online-help authoring tool, such as RoboHelp, HTML Help, AuthorIT, or Doc-To-Help.

To this point, you've been creating what could eventually become application help. That's the help window that pops up when you click Help somewhere at the top of the window containing the software application you are using.

When you deliver application help, you simply provide the programmers with the CHM file you have built and compiled; they set things up in the software application to make it pop up when the user clicks Help or presses F1.

Context-sensitive help is help that is "sensitive" to the particular context you are in in a software application. In this illustration, a user has clicked Format > Cells in Microsoft Excel, but needs information on how to work with the dialog. The user clicks the ? in the upper right corner of the dialog box then clicks on a control somewhere in the dialog box. (Or the user can press F1 with the dialog box open and active.) The context-sensitive help then pops up.

Creating context-sensitive helps is tricky business. You'll go through the process using a very simple example.

Learning the Procedures

In this first part, create application-level help:

1. Place this simple executable file on your desktop: EPro.exe. This dumb little program does next to nothing, but it will help you get a sense of application-level and context-sensitive helps.
2. Double-click the EPro icon to run the program. Click on its help and click I Need Some Serious Help. You should get an error because the help file is not available. Epro.exe is looking for a help file called pp8.chm in its same directory (folder) level—in this case, the desktop.
3. Download this project, pp8, unzip it, compile the help.
4. Copy the pp8.chm out to the desktop. Run the program (EPro.exe) and try viewing the help again.

In this second part, create context-sensitive help:

1. Reopen the pp8 project.
2. Import this map file into the pp8 project: MapFile.hh. It's in the project folder, just not imported yet. A map file establishes links between the program code and your help file.
3. Also, import the topic "New Employee Information" (newemp.htm) into this project. It's in the project folder, just not imported yet.
4. In the Project tab, double-click Aliases. Select MapFile.hh in the Map File field. Highlight the one map ID this map file contains, select New Employee Information over in the list under Topic, then click Assign. Click Close.
5. Compile this project as a .chm file.
6. Return to the desktop and double-click EPro.exe to run it, click File > New, and then press F1. You should get an error message because the association between this dialog box and a specific area of the help file has not been established.
7. To fix the problem, copy the new .chm file you just compiled to the desktop where EPro.exe is. Double-click EPro.exe to run it, click File > New, and then press F1 to the context-sensitive help.

In this third part, create what's-this help:

1. one of these days . . .

Writing about the Procedures

Here are the guidelines for writing about the procedures for this lesson:

• Write the quick-reference notes for this lesson in the help-authoring tool you are using.
• Write these quick-reference notes "for real": include warnings about potential problems that can you trip up.
• Otherwise, you are not obliged to add a lot of explanatory detail. In "guide" information, you see lots of explanation, definitions, screen shots, and alternative methods. That's not needed or expected here.
• Just use simple lead-ins, numbered and bulleted lists. For notes, use paragraphs introduced by a bolded label such as "Caution:."
• Practice good clear economical writing style. Use imperatives (commands) and second-person ("you"); avoid passive-voice and telegraphic writing styles.
• Use subheadings for the subsections of these quick-reference notes.

Revising

Your instructor will review these quick-reference notes rapidly, requesting revisions if necessary and recording an "ok" in the gradebook when no revisions are needed.