There are two general styles of online help:
Application help, whose primary role is to be an integrated part of
an OSF/Motif application.
Stand-alone help, whose primary role is to provide online access to
task, reference, or tutorial information, independent of any application
software.
If you are developing online help for an application, you may choose to
organize the information exclusively for access within the application. Or, you may design the information such that it can be browsed without the
application present, as in stand-alone help.
Part of the Application.
HP Help promotes a high degree of integration between the application and
its online help. From the user's perspective, the help is part of the
application. This approach minimizes the perceived "distance" away from
the application that the user must travel to get help.
Staying close to the application makes users more comfortable with online
help and gets them back on task as quickly as possible.
A "volume" is a collection of "topics" |
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A help volume is a collection of related topics. Normally, the topics
within a volume are arranged in a hierarchy.
If you are developing application help, typically there's one help volume
per application. However, for complex applications, or a collection of
related applications, you might develop several help volumes.
A "product family" is a group of related help volumes |
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Often, software is available as a set of related applications known as a
product family. For example, a set of office productivity applications
may include a word processor, a spreadsheet application, and a drawing
program. Because each application may have its own help volume, the
multi-volume set forms a product family.
Assembling your help volumes into a product family is optional. It is
required only if you want your help to be available for browsing within a
help browser such as the HP VUE Help Manager.
The top level of the HP VUE Help Manager lists product families. The
second level, under each family, lists the volumes that are members of the
product family.
Even if you have only a single help volume, it must belong to a
product family to be browsable via the HP VUE Help Manager.
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