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java:infocenterfirsttry

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Setting up an Infocenter -or help system- for a project

I am running a project for several year –in fact it is the maintenance stage– and I am in the search of a solution for the help. In the starting of the project, our client gave us nine mega word files that contained the help. The result is that nobody look at them for impractical.

Like an ant, I am searching here and there for the best solution to this problem. And finally, I think I bumped into something I consider is the best solution. It consist on the following:

  1. Document the solution through Docbook 1)2)
  2. Install an infocenter in your web server and deploy the generated help in them

It allows you to have the following:

  • A help document that can be printable (PDF)
  • A help document downloadable (one html)
  • A help document that can be consulted on line, with search engine and table of contents
  • A help document portable to CHM (the Microsoft Office help system)

And you only will have to face one document. Once propertly configured the workspace with Docbook and set the infocenter, the result is a help information that can satisfy the needs of all your users, without spending a bucket on it.

Setting the infocenter

I've cut and paste this document from the internet:

documenting_your_project_using_the_eclipse_help_system.pdf

http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/opensource/library/os-echelp/
http://help.eclipse.org/helios/index.jsp?topic=/org.eclipse.platform.doc.isv/guide/ua_help_setup_infocenter.htm

Here I will put my discovering over the issue. I am in the path of installing the infocenter as a web application on a normal WAS, because this project is run on WAS and I don't want to expose all the eclipse runtime to internet: this could endanger the security of the website. Following this line is this article:

http://archive.eclipse.org/eclipse/downloads/drops/R-2.0.1-200208291828/doc/infocenter.html

The first problems

Okay, I've discovered the first problems in this stuff. I made the same test that appear in the document of IBM.

The “problem” is that it is not easy to remove the help documentation of eclipse. You can edit the helpData.xml file and comment out all the toc's that appear there, but this is not enough.

I suspect that you have to search in all the plugins directory, inside all the jar files all the helpData.xml files and comment them out in order to get a “clean” infocenter, with only your documentation.

java/infocenterfirsttry.1419414127.txt.gz · Last modified: 2022/12/02 22:02 (external edit)