Embedded Help Systems

GolehTek, LLC offers end-to-end solutions for embedded help authoring with Adobe FrameMaker^®.

Many of our clients prefer to combine embedded help systems displayed in the user interface of web-based applications with more comprehensive, web-based help systems that open in a web browser. Our EHelp application fully supports this blended approach to embedded help authoring.

An EHelp workflow consists of the following components:

• A custom or modified EDD with EmbeddedTopic elements for storing embedded help topics
• A set of scripts, XSL transforms, and cascading stylesheets for encoding embedded help topics in XML, XHTML, or HTML
• In the case of database-driven applications, a set of scripts for uploading embedded help topics to the database

Features

• Support for embedded help in desktop applications, as well as embedded help for web-based, database-driven applications
• Custom or modified EDDs for embedded help authoring
• Automatic linking to comprehensive, external, context-sensitive help systems
• Custom configuration screens for navigating and configuring connections to database tables that store embedded help content
• Preferences screens for selecting EDDs, page templates, XSL transforms, and cascading style sheets
• Ability to seed chapters with embedded help topics
• Reports that compare the embedded topics defined in a book against the embedded topic IDs defined in a database

Availability

EHelp is available from GolehTek, LLC on a custom-order basis. We custom-tailor EHelp to produce embedded help systems for a wide variety of local and web-based applications.

Some of the ways in which we customize EHelp include the following:

• Custom EDDs: We specialize in producing EDDs (Element Definition Documents) that enable you to produce printed documentation, embedded help systems, and external web-based help systems from your FrameMaker source files. We work with you to create an EDD (or modify an existing EDD) that enables you to define and manage embedded help topics.
• Local or Web-Based Applications: We can configure EHelp to produce embedded help topics for desktop applications as well as for database-driven, web-based applications. We work with a wide range of open-source and commercially available databases including MySQL^®, Oracle^®, and Microsoft SQL Server^®.
• Embedded Topic Encoding: We can configure EHelp to encode embedded help topics per your specifications. Embedded help topics are often encoded in XHTML or HTML and formatted using cascading style sheets.
• Context Links to External Help Systems: We often produce embedded help systems that contain context-sensitive links to more comprehensive, web-based help systems. We can configure EHelp to read the topic IDs in your FrameMaker source files and upload the IDs to your embedded help system.

Contact Us

If you have a project or initiative that you'd like to discuss, send an email to the following address: info@golehtek.com

We look forward to hearing from you.

Creating embedded topics in the structure view

Setting preferences for the embedded help system

Uploading embedded topics to a database