ForeHelp Premier 2001
In this day and age, it has become increasingly important to integrate
Help data into different formats and transmit that data in an efficient
way. Ideally, these files need to be created with a minimum of effort,
yet need to be well organized and easy to use.
Of the Help programs available, ForeHelp Premier 2001 is marketed as
a "Universal Help Authoring Suite." The package I received includes
ForeHelp 5 and ForeHTML Pro 5, and a manual of Add-on Tools. The purpose
of ForeHelp Premier 2001 is to enable users to design and build application
Help files, catalogs, newsletters and online information. This material
can then be transferred onto CD-ROMS, Intranets and the Web. At any point,
you can use the Test mode to simulate the final file and check your links
without building and compiling the Help file.
ForeHelp 5: A Quick Tour
The ForeHelp user interface with a tutorial project under construction.
Within a single ForeHelp project, you can generate WinHelp for Windows
3.1, WinHelp 95 (also known as WinHelp 4.0) for Windows 95 and later and
Windows NT, and HTML-based Help with the addition of ForeHTML Pro. The
completed file can then be attached to a software application or operating
system, or it can operate as a standalone. It is important to realize
that you can write and format your Help information without needing to
learn HTML or WinHelp codes. In addition, ForeHelp uses the same authoring
environment, regardless of the Help that you want to create. However,
if you want to create HTML-based Help, you need to make use of ForeHTML
Pro.
When you open ForeHelp for the first time, the Quick Start dialog will
appear. Choose any of the options and click on Start.
As you move through the Wizard, you will come to a section about the
Default Build Types. Choose from WinHelp 95 or 3.1, HTML Help, InterHelp
or JavaHelp. As you begin to set up projects within ForeHelp, you can
add or remove toolbar buttons, reorder their positions, and remove labels
from the buttons to free up space.
As I worked with the manual, there were not as many screen shots as I
would have liked to see with the text. There were several areas where
I became confused with the descriptions and a screen shot would have helped
tremendously, though it would have made the manual considerably larger
(the ForeHelp 5 manual was already a robust 623 pages and the ForeHTML
Pro manual is 548 pages).
Working through ForeHelp, I was able to type in and format text as necessary
through a variety of dialogs. Being a first time user, though, I found
the dialogs a bit confusing and thought it would be better if the dialogs
were more integrated, rather than having to go through so many menus.
As I worked through the files, it became apparent that this program will
take quite a bit of effort to master, especially with the wide variety
of formatting and styles options.
ForeHelp gives you all sorts of controls, such as defining primary and
secondary Windows for your topics.
As you work through your project, you will find that testing is an important
part of the design process and will save you time and frustration later
on. Testing allows you to see what is really happening. To access testing,
double click on the main heading of your project, in this case, "North
Metro Golf Courses." Click on Test from the Project menu and click
on Cancel if the Help Topics dialog appears.
The topic as it appears in the main Help window.
ForeHelp allows for a wide variety of editing tasks, such as adding pictures,
creating and ordering lists, adding new topics and books, reordering and
editing the lists, etc. When creating a Help file, you can create jumps
from text and images.
Adding buttons to the Help file involves a few steps which you can test
by pressing F10, which opens a test window. From there, you can click
on the button to see the result.
Testing this type of text button brings up the ForeFront
Home Page.
Other important features are the Reporter, the Navigator, and the Graphics
Manager. The Reporter creates reports about and aspect of your project,
including all of the properties assigned to topics, context numbers, windows,
links, keywords, etc. The Navigator, accessed from Tools: Project View
Tools: Navigator, displays the links between topics in your project.
The Navigator window, displaying the links attached to the Indian Peaks
Golf Course topic.
The Graphics Manager lets you view all the picture files inserted in your
project, along with a list of topics containing each picture. In addition,
you can scale, crop, vary transparency, delete and replace pictures. This
can be done one at a time or the Graphics Manager can be used to apply
the changes to all versions of the picture.
Once you are satisfied with the contents of your Help project, you need
to build and compile the final project. ForeHelp initially builds the
HPJ, RTF, and CNT (contents) files for the project, then activates the
WinHelp compiler to compile HPJ and RTF files into the Help file. If there
are errors, ForeHelp will alert you and offer you the option of deleting
the problem or fixing it. When the compilation is complete, you have the
option of creating a print manual in the form of an RTF file.
ForeHTML Pro 5
ForeHTML Pro is an add-on module to ForeHelp and uses the ForeHelp authoring
environment. In ForeHTML Pro, you can create three types of HTML-based
projects (HTML Help, Java Help, and InterHelp) from one ForeHTML project.
You can create hotspots, table of contents, import styles from other ForeHTML
or ForeHelp projects, create a keyword index, insert jumps to remote web
sites, import FrameMaker files, insert custom tags, view the source code,
preview your topics in one or more browsers, insert scripts and applets,
create table styles and more.
Since ForeHTML Pro runs in the same environment as ForeHelp, the ForeHTML
manual does not repeat information covered in the ForeHelp manual. A down
side to this approach is that the ForeHTML Pro manual assumes you know
how to create a Help file using ForeHelp. If not, you will need to complete
the ForeHelp tour first, then start working with the ForeHTML Pro.
Add-on Tools
ForeHelp Premier comes with a series of Add-on Tools, a manual that contains
5 individual users guides. These are the Index Expert, QuickContext and
QuickFix, OLE for Help, ForeFront Help Buttons and ForeVB 2.
The Index Expert is designed to help you quickly define a list of concepts
for your Help project, then build a keyword index for all topics relating
to each concept.
QuickContext automatically creates context-sensitive Help topics for a
software application, including dialog Help and "What's This?"
Help. For the program to work properly, you need to supply it with the
same context-number formula that the programmers use and it must be built
with a programming language, such as C++.
QuickFix runs concurrently with a software application in the event that
you want to test its context-sensitive Help.
OLE for Help gives you the ability to create help files that can be dynamically
updated using the Object Linking and Embedding (OLE) architecture used
by Microsoft. This architecture allows you to blend different types of
information into your ForeHelp project. OLE supported applications include
MS Word, Access, Excel, WordPad and Paintbrush. Other applications that
support OLE can be used for creating pictures, spreadsheets, charts, etc.
to be integrated into the Help file.
ForeFront Help Buttons are designed to let you quickly create text and
graphic buttons, as well as toolbars for use within a WinHelp file. You
can custom create your own designs, or make use of the available templates.
ForeVB is used to design and write context-sensitive Help for Visual Basic
applications. ForeHelp integrates with ForeVB to create procedural and
reference Help topics, including Help Topics dialog box content.
Final Comments and Observations
From what I've seen, ForeHelp Premier 2001 is one extensive product. Working
through the tutorials, I found that there are a lot of steps to complete
any given Help project, which could make for a time intensive process.
And as I noted earlier, I felt the sparse number of screenshots impaired
the learning process. In my opinion, this software is definitely not meant
for the novice. Still, the results were worth it, but be if you've never
used this kind of software before, be prepared for a steep learning curve.
Pricing and Availability
There are several pricing schemes in effect for this product. First time
buyers can purchase the full application for $849.00. The upgrade price
from ForeHelp Premier 2000 is $299.00. To upgrade from any other ForeHelp
version, the price is $499.00. For more information, visit the ForeHelp
website at http://www.forefront.com
Contact phone numbers are (800) 357-8507 or (303) 499-9181.
System Requirements
A Pentium computer, Windows 95/98/2000/NT 4 & later, VGA monitor 32
MB of RAM, 55 MB of available hard-disk space for ForeHelp 5. An Additional
47 MB if also installing ForeHTML Pro. For the full ForeHelp Premier suite,
you will need 107 MB of hard-disk space.
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