Southwest Fox Deadline Coming Up

There are only 8 days left to get a free pre-conference session and chance for scholarships for Southwest Fox 2011. We’re already ahead of the pace from this time last year so be sure to register before July 1 so you don’t miss out.

Better Online Help Links

I’ve been using Rick Strahl’s West Wind HTML Help Builder for more than a decade and still think it’s the best tool for creating help files. One of the many things I like about it is that in addition to creating a CHM file, it also generates files you can upload to a web site. For example, http://www.stonefieldquery.com/OnlineHelp/EndUser/index.htm is the online version of the Stonefield Query end-user help. I didn’t have to do anything after generating my CHM other than uploading the files HTML Help Builder creates.

There are several reasons why we like having help available online:

• Potential customers can review the complete help file before downloading the demo if they wish.
• It’s fully indexed by Google, Bing, etc. so shows up in searches.
• When someone asks a support question, rather than telling them to bring up the help file, open the “How To” heading, and find the “Configuring Stonefield Query” topic, we can send them a link directly to the online version: Configuring Stonefield Query.

However, one issue with the latter item is that a link like http://www.stonefieldquery.com/OnlineHelp/EndUser/_04a0xwfxe.htm displays the help topic without the rest of the help system: no table of contents or search mechanism. I discovered today that if instead of specifying the page directly, you use it as a parameter for the index page, like http://www.stonefieldquery.com/OnlineHelp/EndUser/index.htm?page=_04a0xwfxe.htm, it displays the full help system with the desired page selected. Learn something new every day!

Thanks again, Rick, for a great tool that makes documentation almost fun to create! (I did say ALMOST; I’m not crazy!)

Pinning the Southwest Fox Web Site

If you’re using Windows 7 and Internet Explorer 9, try this:

• Navigate to the Southwest Fox web site: www.swfox.net
• Drag the icon that appears to the left of the address bar to your Windows Task Bar:

• Notice you now have a Southwest Fox icon in your Task Bar. Click it as a fast way to bring up the Southwest Fox web site.
• Right-click the icon to display the following jump list. The items in the Tasks section take you to the specific page on the web site:

Now it’s a single mouse click to get to the most popular pages on the web site.

If your interested in adding this capability to your own web site, it’s really easy: go to http://buildmypinnedsite.com/ and follow the steps.