Design the WinHelp File

WinHelp Database Publishing with MiniHelp Plus
A Tutorial by John C. Reynolds III
This is Part 2 of 6 (Design WinHelp File)

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TASK 1: Design the WinHelp File

Before attacking the database end of this project, first design the Windows help (WinHelp) file by making a working model of your intended finished product. Use MiniHelp Plus to do this because it will be important that you perfect the coding you require in the ASCII text source file(s) for your project.
In building your working model of the WinHelp file, use just a few example database 'records' as its contents. This will make it faster and easier to experiment, correct errors, and recompile than if you were to use the hundreds or thousands of records that might be in you finished database.
For a WinHelp database publishing project, I have made a WinHelp phone book that lists all the employees of the company I work for, Daniel Industries. I will use a scaled-down version of this WinHelp phone book, with only three people listed, as the example for this tutorial.
The Daniel phone book has these three main features:

A pop-up instruction screen that appears when the WinHelp file is started. This screen brings attention to the 'search' feature of the Windows help file for the user who is not familiar with that feature. (Click here to see full view of the screen display - 11.2 KB.)

A startup topic that lists all of the entries in the phone book. This makes it possible for the user to print the entire contents of the phone book so that he or she can have an 'offline' version of the phone book, if so desired. (Click here to see full view of the screen display - 8.4 KB.)

Individual topics for each entry in the phone book. This makes it possible to assign search keywords for each person listed in the phone book. The keywords, at minimum, should be "Firstname Lastname" and "Lastname, Firstname". Additional keywords could consist of company department names, job titles, special skills, or other criteria that you define. Your database design and scripts can help implement this feature. (Click here to see full view of the screen display - 6.7 KB.)

For this phone book, I let my database produce two ASCII source files to be used by MiniHelp Plus. The first file, depersn1.src, points to the second source file, depersn2.src, by means of this command at the end of depersn1.src:

.include depersn2.src

These two source files serve different purposes. The first source file, depersn1.src, provides the coding that MiniHelp requires for making the Windows help "project" (.hpj) file, the starting pop-up topic, and the first topic that lists all of the entries in the phone book. The second file, depersn2.src, has the coding for all of the individual topics dedicated to each individual's entry in the phone book.
TIP: Separating database output into multiple source files can help modularize a complex project, so that you can quickly compile only parts of the help file and confine troubleshooting to manageable portions.
See also:

Source File, depersn1.src
Source File, depersn2.src

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This is Part 2 of 6 (Design WinHelp File)

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Š1997 John C. Reynolds III - last updated 1997 November 20
http://www.compassnet.com/jreynold/whdb_1.htm

is a registered trademark for Daniel Industries, Inc.

	A pop-up instruction screen that appears when the WinHelp file is started. This screen brings attention to the 'search' feature of the Windows help file for the user who is not familiar with that feature. (Click here to see full view of the screen display - 11.2 KB.)
	A startup topic that lists all of the entries in the phone book. This makes it possible for the user to print the entire contents of the phone book so that he or she can have an 'offline' version of the phone book, if so desired. (Click here to see full view of the screen display - 8.4 KB.)
	Individual topics for each entry in the phone book. This makes it possible to assign search keywords for each person listed in the phone book. The keywords, at minimum, should be "Firstname Lastname" and "Lastname, Firstname". Additional keywords could consist of company department names, job titles, special skills, or other criteria that you define. Your database design and scripts can help implement this feature. (Click here to see full view of the screen display - 6.7 KB.)