FlexHelp compared with Traditional "Production" Help Technologies

Online Help for Microsoft Windows applications is usually implemented using one of the two technologies built into the operating system. Windows Help (WinHelp) has been used since Windows 3.1 and is supported on all 32-bit Windows platforms. HTML Help is a newer techonology, which is included in Windows 98 and 2000.

FlexHelp is not intended to be a replacement for these technologies, and in fact can be used in conjunction with them. WinHelp and HTML Help are primarily designed to be a vehicle for creating "production" help systems that ship with Windows applications. Implementing context-sensitive help systems with these technologies requires collaboration between the help author and the programmer, and it is generally necessary to modify the program source code and/or recompile the application to implement the help system.

In contrast, FlexHelp requires no access to the source code or need to recompile. Context-sensitive help can be added to virtually any 3rd party Windows application without any knowledge of the program internals. While FlexHelp topics appear to be "attached" to applications, in fact they run as a completely separate program. Therefore, no modifications are made to the host application and there is no danger of corrupting program files.

The table on the next page shows a detailed comparison between FlexHelp and production help technologies such as WinHelp, HTML Help and JavaHelp.

	Production Help Technologies	FlexHelp
Example Technologies	WinHelp, HTML Help, JavaHelp	FlexHelp
Information Display	Specific to technology	Flexible: plain text, HTML, WinHelp, Word documents, multimedia, etc.
Linking help topics to an application requires access to source code/recompiling	Yes	No
Help topics can be added to 3rd party applications	No	Yes
Topics can easily to added/removed/updated over corporate network	No	Yes
Who should use it?	Help authors, developers	Help desk/support staff, training staff, MIS staff, help authors, project managers, developers
Appropriate uses	Generic, production help systems for Windows applications developed in-house.	Supplementary/custom help systems created by internal support/help desk staff Help systems or computer-based training systems for 3rd party applications. Project/task-specific information integrated into applications. Prototype help systems that will later be converted to production technologies.

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