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An interesting thing I have noticed with WebHelp..... the original
Netscape 4.51 I downloaded when the release first came out was crap.
Crashed on my every time. I've been following, and Netscape has been
promising CSS1 support with their next release. Woo hoo... we need
it now though!
I finally had to download Netscape 4.51 again because it was giving
me many other problems in addition to just not loading the Java App.
in WebHelp. With the SAME VERSION NUMBER AND EVERYTHING.... just
downloade at a more recent date.... it not only works fine for me BUT
I can get the "will-never-ever-ever-work-on-a-non-IE-browser" style
sheets to work as long as I save them as the "WHnonIE" file.
Huh??
I don't pretend to understand it.
Overall, I've noticed a lot less problems with a more recent version
of the same release of Netscape. I think the first 4.51 was buggy,
as is anything below that.
Seems like the best thing to do for cross-platform support using
WebHelp is to give the option of a single, non-java and plain old web
page for people to fall back on. Realisticly, it should be a part of
any Web-based help system as nothing will ever work perfectly all the
time and at least it gives you a fall back. If possible, a nice
start page that gives people an option of a java or non java site is
always a good idea. A link back to a HTML page of a TOC will solve
the problems rather than just relying on the WebHelp TOC to work. If
you're doing any kind of cross-platform support it really is the only
option to ensure a site that will be accessable for everyone. You
never know WHAT configuration someone will have on a machine they use
to look at a WH system, and frankly it took both major browsers 3
releases just to get HTML to not make the programs go buggy, I find
it hard to believe that ever-developing Java will run smoothly and/or
reliably within the next two years.
Victoria Nuttle
Tech Writer--Motorola
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