Switching HTML Help files on the fly: caching problems?

["Hart, Geoff" <Geoff-H -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA>]

Derk Ederveen reports: <<We have an application, built in Microsoft FoxPro,
with an online language switch. The user can select e.g. "Language/English"
or "Language/Dutch" to switch the interface language without leaving the
application. We're having trouble switching the help file as well.>>

The way we do it is to ask users to select the language for the user
interface before they go to the help file. That's based on the logic that
they'll be working in their preferred language while they use the software,
and will want the help delivered in the same language. Simplistically, the
way we do this is set a "flag" variable for the language choice. Then, when
someone invokes the help system, the software checks the status of this flag
to see which help file it should open. Since the topic IDs are identical in
both our languages, this works like a charm.

<<In case it matters: we use modular help, the avwin.chm is the 'hub' for
some 10 underlying help files.>>

I suppose you could always create a single "home page" help file that
contains only language buttons. Upon clicking the desired language, the
appropriate help system opens. Worth a try?

--Geoff Hart, geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca
Forest Engineering Research Institute of Canada
580 boul. St-Jean
Pointe-Claire, Que., H9R 3J9 Canada 

"It's one thing to see death coming at the hands of your own creation.
That's part of the human epic tradition, after all. Oedipus and his father.
Baron Frankenstein and his monster. William Henry Gates and Windows
'09."--David Brin, _Kiln People_

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Robohelp X3, from eHelp, lets you quickly and easily create 
professional Help systems for all your Windows and Web-based 
applications, including Net. 

Order RoboHelp X3 in May and receive a $100 mail-in rebate, PLUS
free RoboScreenCapture and WebHelp Merge Module. 
 
Order RoboHelp today: http://www.ehelp.com/techwr-l

---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as:
archive -at- raycomm -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
Send administrative questions to ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com -dot-  Visit
http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.