Context Help for MS Access in HTML

[Peter]

I have written a number of applications for MS Office, I have always written
the Help files in HLP format using the MS Help Workshop, these work fine and
have always more than filled the requirements I had.

However because we are being told that the days of the HLP help files is
pretty much over and HTML is the way forward I picked one project that is
based on MS Access and started trying to recreate the HLP topics into a CHM
file using Frontpage and MS HTML Help Workshop.

This has worked reasonably well for the main help file and I do enjoy the
added functionality of the HTML format, but...

The What's This help functionality fell flat on it's face, after much
research I located a number of MS KB articles on the subject, such as
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/828419/en-us, but the results
are not really satisfactory where context help is needed.

This method is far more code heavy and frankly produces a result that is
inferior to the HLP system that it is supposed to replace, not to metion the
lack of support for message boxes in Office, irrevelant screen placement of
pop-up help window and so on.

So my question is this...

I am no help authour guru, but it seems to me that the HTML help system
really doesn't cater for the What's This type of help in Office applications,
especially Access forms where it is brilliant for giving a user immediate
information about what the next field expects. Have I missed something or is
HTML help not intended for Office or Access forms, if so, how then do I move
away from HLP files without losing the functionality the users of my
applications have grown used to.

Any thoughts appreciated.

--
Regards - Peter

[Pete Lees]

Hi, Peter,

> ...
> I am no help authour guru, but it seems to me that the HTML help system
> really doesn't cater for the What's This type of help in Office applications,
> especially Access forms where it is brilliant for giving a user immediate
> information about what the next field expects. Have I missed something or is
> HTML help not intended for Office or Access forms, if so, how then do I move
> away from HLP files without losing the functionality the users of my
> applications have grown used to.

As far as I'm aware, the information in Dave Liske's paper "Using HTML Help
with Microsoft Access" is still up-to-date, even if it was first published
six years ago.

http://frogleg.mvps.org/helptechnologies/htmlhelp/hhaccess.html

Notice the depressing conclusion:

"So, when it comes to Access of any variety, use menus and call custom
topics from command buttons to your heart's content. But you'll just have to
leave What's This help alone."

One option could be to use the KeyHelp ActiveX control to display
feature-rich HTML popups. See this page:

http://helpware.net/htmlhelp/how_to_whatsthis.htm

Pete

[Peter]

Thanks for the response,

Mr Liske has been thorough in his research and I would agree that the
content is still very relevant, certainly up to and including Access 2003.

I have never had any issue with What's This help from Access forms
displaying in pop up windows correctly until I attempted to incorporate it
into a HTML help file, whereupon they simply ceased to work.

From the perspective of a plebian, it seems that Microsoft have decided to
go down the HTML path with their help systems whilst leaving the apps like
Office that grew up with the older systems in the twilight world of
supporting only the superseded files that they are busily telling us to
replace.

My first foray into the world of HTML help has not been terribly endearing,
oh well, such is...

Thanks again for the pointer.

--
Regards - Peter