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Re: CHM file capability

Subject: Re: CHM file capability
From: "Rick Stone" <rstone75 -at- kc -dot- rr -dot- com>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Date: Sat, 30 Oct 2004 00:02:03 -0500


David Neely surmised:

Unless I am mistaken, the lady's answer is "no"--no matter what she
means by "track history."

As a compiled help file, there are only limited abilities of a .chm.
Any sort of active "tracking" would need to be at the application
level--although some sort of history-of-use capture would be useful
indeed for seeing what parts of a product were most often causing help
system access.

If anyone knows of a method of doing this within the helpfile
methodology, I shall be very interested in learning of it.

I suppose it all depends on the determination and creativity of the help author. For example, back when I was doing WinHelp (circa 1998/1999) a co-worker helped me out by creating a Visual Basic application that silently logged entries to an Access Database. I configured topic entry macros to invoke the VB app and supplied parameters such as the topic being accessed and the help file it was inside (I had about 250 different WinHelp files that comprised a combined system) The VB app gathered the username from the LAN login. In operation it was pretty slick and we could later see what topics were "hot". I knew which topic was accessed, when it had been accessed, by whom, and what .HLP file it was stored inside.

I could envision a similar setup using .CHM files configured with onLoad commands to launch hidden shortcut controls that would do the same thing as the WinHelp system did. It would be a significant effort, to be sure. But I'm thinking it could be within the realm of possibility.

Cheers... Rick :)



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Follow-Ups:

References:
CHM file capability: From: Syeda Rabia Fathima
Re: CHM file capability: From: TechComm Dood
Re: CHM file capability: From: David Neeley

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