Customer Reviews

Building Enhanced HTML Help with DHTML and CSS

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Jeannine Klein's book, "Building Enhanced HTML Help with DHTML & CSS," is a great addition to the lore and knowledge of Microsoft's new online help standard, HTML Help. The few books on HTML Help that are available focus on a particular Help Authoring Tool (HAT) such as RoboHelp from eHelp or ForeHelp from ForeFront. Jeannine Klein's book goes beneath the surface and helps you understand what's going on. While this is not a book aimed at programmers, you should be interesting in learning more about HTML, DHTML, JavaScript, and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS).

If you're a technical writer, I think it's worthwhile to learn these technologies. Think of it as an investment in yourself. Even if you do use a HAT, the knowledge you gain from this book will help you to produce better results with fewer headaches. I recommend it highly.

I am the author and I just wanted to apologize to reviewer jplummer1 for being slow in getting the Web site operational. However, it is up and functioning now, so I hope the reviewer (and other readers) will return to the Web site and and that they will find it useful.

Also, just for information, the project documented in the book took about 6 months, not "years" as jplummer1 suggested. Finally, please disregard the "5-star" rating above--Amazon wouldn't let me post this review without supplying a rating.

I'm converting 170 WinHelp projects created in RoboHelp 4.0 to 13 HTML help projects, and am having to create the project files myself because the Robo engines don't do what I need them to do. I bought this book to get some help and support. I have found answers to many questions in this book. I've used it as a reference, not as a primary resource though. Its usefulness really depends on your current understanding of HTML and what you need to learn. If you need or want to edit the source HTML or your project files, this book could be of use to you.

While still hoping for a "bible" on HTML Help, this book is a good starting point for understanding HTML Help. Jeannine wisely avoids using help authoring tools, and instead describes clearly and succinctly how to build HTML Help using the Microsoft HTML Help Workshop and text editors or HTML editors.

Jeannine's examples are very good, though the book could have used a bit more editing (one code sample left out a closing double quote, for example, resulting in an error is you used the code in your work), it's the best thing out there right now.

If you're going to create HTML Help, you'll probably want to get this book.

The continually referenced web site says, "Coming Soon." This book may be ok for a full time help author but is very time consuming to find information. CSS, DHTML and HTML Help information is scattered all over the book. The index is of little help. I'm sure someone could build HTML Help if they had years to do it as did the projects the author references. The supposed on-line files might help. I feel very ripped off that the author did not follow through on the website and example files.