Help Topic Author

Help File Authoring Tool

Contents

• Description
• Compatibility
• Installation
• Known Issues
• Update History
• License and Copyright
• About the Author

Description

The Help Topic Author program assists in the production of rich text source files for use with the Microsoft Help Workshop or other help compilers. The program keeps track of the topic titles, ids, keywords and hotlinks in the help system without the user having to manually enter and maintain the required special text formatting and footnotes.

Each topic is listed in the left hand pane of the display as it is added. The text associated with each topic is entered and edited in the right hand pane. It is easy to move between topics by clicking on the required topic title to have its text and attributes displayed in the right hand pane.

Topics entered using Help Topic Author can be saved to disk and loaded again later for editing. At any stage the program can output a rich text file suitable for compiling into a help file.

Compatibility

This is a 32 bit Windows program. It has been tested under Windows 98 and should run on Windows 95 and Me.

The program is known to be incompatible with Windows 2000 and should not be used on this platform. Note: Help Topic Author will detect Windows 2000 and will refuse to run on that platform. It is hoped that a future release will be Windows 2000 compatible. It is unknown if this problem extends to earlier versions of Windows NT. See below.

Installation and removal

Installation

Help Topic Author is provided in a self-extracting install program - htainst.exe. The installation program is a console application that executes in a terminal window. htainst.exe may also be distributed within a .zip file along with ReadMe.txt. If this is the case, unzip the .zip file and then execute htainst.exe, after reading ReadMe.txt for further information.

By default Help Topic Author is installed into C:\Program Files\PJSoft\HelpAuthor1. To install the program into the default folder simply navigate in Explorer to where you downloaded htainst.exe and double click the file. The installer will open a console and will display its welcome message before pausing for you to enter an installation path. Either press return to accept the suggested path or enter the required path and press return.

Installing Help Topic Author will make the following changes to your system:

• All program files are copied into an installation folder (C:\Program Files\PJSoft\HelpAuthor1 by default)
• The registry is altered by inserting the following key
  • HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\PJSoft\HelpAuthor\1.0

File Manifest

A list of installed files is included in ReadMe.txt.

Source Code

The program's source code is not provided with this distribution. It is available for download from my website.

Removal

To uninstall Help Topic Author use Control Panel's Add/Remove Programs applet.

To take care of uninstallation on behalf of Add/Remove programs htainst.exe installs a console based uninstall program (UnInstall.exe) into the root installation folder (C:\Program Files\PJSoft\HelpAuthor1 by default). This program requires a data file - UnInstall.xml and a DLL - InstallLib.dll - which are also installed. Care should be taken not to move or delete these files as they are required by Add/Remove programs.

UnInstall.exe deletes most files and cleans the registry. However, UnInstall.exe can't delete itself. Once Help Topic Author has been uninstalled it is safe to manually delete UnInstall.exe and the installation folder.

If for any reason uninstallation via Control Panel does not work then you can uninstall manuall. ReadMe.txt gives details of how to do this.

Known Issues

• When a cursor is inside a tag paragraph tags can still be inserted around the tag - this is a problem for tags with contents
• When a keep-on-line or no-scroll tags are inserted and then something is typed after them it's possible to insert a duplicate tag in same paragraph. Additionally when there is typing after tag it isn't possible to remove tag until typing after tag is deleted.
• Some spurious line spacing codes and some unsupported help compiler items such as bullets sometimes creep into the system and cause the displayed help file to look unlike the Help Topic Author's version.
• When running under Windows 2000 the program crashes when attempting to write out RTF files. Help Topic Auther is not compatible with Windows 2000.

Update History

No public release
Help Topic Author v1.0 of 02/07/1999

• Original version of project. Supports Title, ID and K-Keyword footnotes.

No public release
Help Topic Author v1.1 of 23/07/1999

• Updated to support multiple keywords instead of just K-Keywords
• File format altered to HTA1.1.

No public release
Help Topic Author v1.1.1 of 30/07/1999

• "Bug" fix which altered format of footnotes RTF code so that Delphi's KWGEN understands them.

No public release
Help Topic Author v1.2 of 04/08/1999

• Added new menu option to remove all character formatting from selected text.

No public release
Help Topic Author v1.3 of 07/08/1999

• Added support for bitmap references, macro buttons and paragraph borders.

No public release
Help Topic Author v1.3.1 of 11/09/2000

• Changes made to enable the program to be compiled using Delphi 4 instead of Delphi 2.

No public release
Help Topic Author v1.3.2 of 12/09/2000

• Modified format of genarated rich text files to conform to standard.

No public release
Help Topic Author v1.3.3 of 14/09/2000

• Fixed bug where deleted objects remained in the project and were saved to file. This bug was causing file bloat.

No public release
Help Topic Author v1.4 of 25/10/2000

• Revised user interface:
  • provided a hideable toolbar for common actions
  • implemented file drag and drop from explorer
  • allowed topic list to be resized using splitter bar
  • main window now remembers size, position and state
  • rearranged menus
• Added facility to save persistent values in registry
• Fixed some reported bugs in fonts dialog box.
• Made it possible to edit existing button macros.

No public release
Help Topic Author v1.4.1 of 25/10/2000

• Fixed bug that was loosing track of some embedded tags.

No public release
Help Topic Author v1.5 of 27/10/2000

• Added some improved file management abilities:
  • New Reopen option on file menu that remembers last five files and allows them to be quickly re-opened.
  • Option to reopen the file that was opened the last time the program was closed.
  • Remember path to last used file to allow Open and Save dlg boxes to default to that folder.
• Added new Application Options menu item and dialog box to permit:
  • User to decide whether to reopen last file on startup.
  • User to decide whether toolbar should be displayed at start up.

No public release
Help Topic Author v1.6 of 28/10/2000

• Provided ability to read files earlier file formats.

No public release
Help Topic Author v1.7 of 29/10/2000

• Added internet functionality to program:
  • gave access to PJSoft website and website's bug report page from help menu
  • added new dialog box that is displayed when possible bugs are detected - this allows automatic reporting of bugs via net.
• Tidied up help menu.

No public release
Help Topic Author v1.7.1 of 04/11/2000

• Fixed a tag numbering bug.

No public release
Help Topic Author v1.7.2 of 05/11/2000

• Made validate topic title and ids.
• Updated help files and changed their project files to new hap extension.

No public release
Help Topic Author v1.7.3 of 05/11/2000

• Cured bug that where project wasn't being properly reset when attempt was made to open a non-existant file.

No public release
Help Topic Author v1.7.4 of 12/12/2000

• Absence of required DLL was causing program to lock up. Program now terminates with warning message if missing DLL detected at start-up.

No public release
Help Topic Author v1.7.5 of 23/12/2000

• Fixed bug that was causing occasional access to incorrect help files
• Rewrote much of dialog box code to make common with newer dialogs

No public release
Help Topic Author v1.8 of 13/05/2001

• Added new facility to insert bullet in text (new dialog box and toolbar button + pop-up bullet palette)
• Added new toolbar button to select text colour (with pop-up colour palette)
• Improved required enabling / disabling of text attribute related controls and menu item

No public release
Help Topic Author v1.8.1 of 13/05/2001

• Fixed problem where using Reopen menu could discard a modified file without offering chance to save it.

No public release
Help Topic Author v1.8.2 of 20/05/2001

• Can now change a given character attribute across a selection without changing other character attributes to be same as those of first character in selection.

No public release
Help Topic Author v1.9 of 23/06/2001

• Reworked engine's object model. Topic object now own there own list of tags rather than accessing a global list. Tag management has been simplified and door has be opened to much more flexibility in manipulating topics.
• File format changes to HTA1.09 -- not compatible with earlier versions, although automatic conversion code has been provided.
• Fixed a small bug where a bullet insertion was setting font to Arial after bullet was inserted.
• No user interface changes in this version.

No public release
Help Topic Author v1.9.1 of 23/06/2001

• Fixed bug which was causing bitmap with '\' character in file name not to be found by help compiler.

No public release
Help Topic Author v1.9.2 of 23/06/2001

• Pressing F1 over main window and most dialogs now displays an appropriate help topic.
• Updated help file to correct errors and inconsistencies.

Release 1.10 of 21/07/2001
Help Topic Author v1.10.0 of 21/07/2001

• Added support for topic comments which are stored in Help Author project files and help compiler source RTF files.
• Altered user interface to allow these comments to be entered and displayed.

No public release
Help Topic Author v1.10.1 of 05/08/2001

• Fixed bug that was causing errors writing RTF files under Windows 2000 (due to problems in parsing colour tables).

Release 1.10.2 of 12/08/2001
Help Topic Author v1.10.2 of 11/08/2001

• Modified bug report dialog box to permit user to provide OS version and additional info about the bug being reported.

No public release
Help Topic Author v1.11.0 of 25/08/2001

• Added new option to create a duplicate topic.

Release 1.12 of 30/08/2001
Help Topic Author v1.12.0 of 30/08/2001

• Updated toolbar to provide an overflow menu for any controls that can't be displayed in toolbar.
• Added new paragraph format related toolbar buttons + one to insert / edit macro buttons.
• Modified paragraph format and application options dialogs.

Release 1.12.1 of 09/09/2001
Help Topic Author v1.12.1 of 09/09/2001

• Improved bug report dialog box so that version of operating system is detected by program.
• Made program refuse to run under Windows 2000 due to incompatibility with that OS.

License & Copyright

This program is copyright © 1999-2001 - PJSoft (P.D.Johnson), Llanarth, Wales, UK.

The program and source code (where supplied) is placed in the public domain. It may be freely copied and circulated on a not-for-profit basis providing that

• the source code (where provided) is not altered.
• all files included in this distribution, including this file, are distributed together and are not changed.
• information about the author and the copyright notice remains attached to the source code and the help file.
• modifications to the source code must not be circulated without the author's written permission.

By not-for-profit I mean that you may recover out of pocket expenses incurred in distributing the code, but you should not make any profit from this.

No warranty is made about the suitability of this software for any application. It is provided "as-is" and is used at your own risk.

If you discover any bugs in this implementation, or if you have any update suggestions, please contact me on peter.johnson@openlink.org.

Please do modify the source code for you own use providing it is not re-distributed (see above). I'd like to see any changes you make - I could incorporate them into future versions. Please notify me of changes on at the above e-mail address.

All registered trademarks are acknowledged.

About the Author

I'm Peter Johnson - a hobbyist programmer living in Ceredigion in West Wales, UK. I write mainly in Delphi, but occasionally dabble in C, C++ and Java. My programs are available for download on my web-site: http://www.pjsoft.contactbox.co.uk/.

I can be contacted by e-mail on peter.johnson@openlink.org.