writing help file - please help

[Miana Husada]

Hi!
I have build an application in java. now i want to write a help file for the user that contains the explanation of the program,about how to use it.
Do you have any idea where should i write the information?using JTextArea? i don't have any idea about it, please help me how it usually be done.
I have prepare 1 menu for help in menu bar, but i don't know what is the action for it.
thanks a lot.

[Chantal Ackermann]

hi,
use JavaHelp:
http://java.sun.com/products/javahelp/
it spares you from writing the gui code for the help frames, and lets you concentrate on the content of the help.
cheers,
chantal

[Miana Husada]

Hi Chantal!
Thanks for your reply. Have you ever used javahelp before? How to use it? can you please explain?
Thanks a lot!

[Chantal Ackermann]

hi,
yes, I am using it. There is a documentation that comes with the binaries. you can download the whole package at the given url. I cannot explain it better than in this User Guide. Basically, you are writing the content of the help in html format. JavaHelp does the indexing (for search) and the displaying in a helpviewer for you. what you do in your application is to call the appropriate help class (see the documentation) whenever the user requests help.
chantal

[javatool]

Here is the foum special for JavaHelp.
http://forum.java.sun.com/forum.jsp?forum=42
There is a very simple example to demostrate how to embed JavaHelp to app.
may download it from: http://www.pivotonic.com/jawahelpauthor/HelloJavaHelp.zip
[ August 19, 2003: Message edited by: peter xue ]