Checking Application HTML Help Context IDs

Subject: Checking Application HTML Help Context IDs
From: Peter Lucas <peterlucas -at- decadesoftware -dot- com>
To: TECHWR-L <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 10:58:46 -0800

(This is not exactly related to technical writing, but there are folks here
who create HTML Help. If there's a better list for this question, please let
me know.)

Our company for years has created WinHelp help files using ForeHelp.
ForeHelp came with a great utility called QuickFix that would run in the
foreground and intercept the F1 call from any application to the
corresponding WinHelp file. So, if we had a field on a form in our product,
and I needed to know the field's context ID, I could just press F1 and the
QuickFix dialog would display the help file name, the context number, and
the topic name.

We are now creating our help using Microsoft HTML Help, but I can't seem to
find a similar utility. The product we are using, RoboHelp for FrameMaker,
doesn't have a similar utility, and the folks at RoboHelp don't have any
idea where I could find one.

Yes, I know I can just get the list of IDs from the programmer, but
sometimes even with the list, I get errors for certain fields, and with
QuickFix, it was easy for me to tell whether the ID had been assigned
incorrectly by the programmer, or whether I had forgotten to assign the ID
to the topic.

If I need to, I can have one of my programmers here come up with something
that intercepts the call to the HTML Help API, but I'd rather not have them
reinvent the wheel, so to speak.

Thanks!

Peter Lucas




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