RoboHELP 2000 Bible (with CD-ROM)

Rating:
Summary: Robohelp 2000 Bible- Great Buy
Review: I thought that this books was great and very informative.

Rating:
Summary: Robohelp 2000 Bible- A bit disappointing.
Review: Most of it covers Winhelp, rather than HTMLHelp and WebHelp which is more at the leading edge and where the excitement is.

Also this book has been much delayed. It is bizarre to publish it just a week before the next new version of RoboHelp (version 9) is launched, although, as it happens WinHelp is unchanged.

It is not really a bible, more just a competent user guide.

It would have been interesting to give warts and all information, for example how it compares against Forehelp which has less market share, probably because of less agressive marketing, but may be an easier and more feature rich product to use.

Rating:
Summary: An excellent reference
Review: Robohelp is advertised as "easy to use", but nothing that produces useful help tools can really be "easy." A good reference is needed, and this book provides it. The intro part focuses on Winhelp, and the last half of the book focuses on HTMLhelp. There are many examples and tips throughout the book and I found my confidence growing in using Robohelp by having this book nearby. Probably nothing works as well as experience, but this is a book I would recommend to new writers working with Robohelp 2000 or 2002.

Rating:
Summary: An excellent reference
Review: Robohelp is advertised as "easy to use", but nothing that produces useful help tools can really be "easy." A good reference is needed, and this book provides it. The intro part focuses on Winhelp, and the last half of the book focuses on HTMLhelp. There are many examples and tips throughout the book and I found my confidence growing in using Robohelp by having this book nearby. Probably nothing works as well as experience, but this is a book I would recommend to new writers working with Robohelp 2000 or 2002.

Rating:
Summary: The RoboHELP 2000 Bible: the *complete* RoboHELP compendium
Review: This book and CD combination from John Hedtke and Elisabeth Knottingham is the complete compendium of how to use every aspect of RoboHELP Office 2000. It provides the beginning user of RoboHELP with an introduction to the product and shows how to create WinHelp and HTML Help files. It also shows intermediate and advanced users how to get the most out of RoboHELP and the ancillary tools. It will subsequently serve as a complete reference.

The book starts by showing you how to install and configure RoboHELP for your system. It identifies the various tools in RoboHELP used by both WinHelp and HTML Help. There will also be a discussion of how to plan your help system. The WinHelp section of the book starts by showing you how to navigate the WinHelp-specific screens and options to create a WinHelp project from scratch, including creating the RTF and HPJ files. The book shows you how to add topics, compile a simple help file, and test and debug. Next, the book discusses adding keywords, adding and testing context-sensitive hooks, adding simple graphics, creating "hotspot" graphics, and adding index and See Also keywords. The book will then continue with more advanced WinHelp techniques: creating macros, creating context-sensitive help, embedding multimedia files of various kinds, using secondary windows, and using the wide range of RoboHELP tools to analyze, test, and decompile WinHelp files. The WinHelp section of the book concludes with information on managing large online help projects.

The second half of the book will discuss the creation of HTML Help. This involves a process similar to creating WinHelp, but HTML Help has different elements and it produces a different product. The section will open with information on how to start an HTML Help project from scratch. As with the WinHelp section, you will see how to use the various tools in the HTML Help editor to add topics, create jumps, creating and testing context-sensitive HTML Help, adding simple graphics, and creating hotspot graphics.

The second half of the book continues with coding techniques specific to HTML Help: adding Java scripts to enhance the basic feature set and taking advantage of different browser features (such as the need to add a Java script idle loop on some help systems that are going to be used by Netscape rather than Internet Explorer). The section will conclude with a discussion of the techniques available for using HTML Help as an Internet-based help system and for using HTML-based help across multiple platforms using RoboHELP's WebHelp and other HTML-based help systems.

Extensive appendixes discuss the WinHelp HPJ file, footnote symbols, RoboHELP reports, additional resources for WinHelp and HTML Help users, information on installing the product, a quick reference to HTML commands, and information on how to use the CD, which contains a 30-day timed demo of RoboHELP Office 2000, as well as some exceptional tools for working with graphics (such as JASC's PaintShop Pro and their recent product, Media Center 3 Plus). There is also an extensive glossary of terms.