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Help Logic Is An Help Authoring Solution For Mac Os
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You want your courses to be fantastic. You want to catch your learners attention, engage them, and provide a flat learning curve experience. But designing a perfect learning experience can take a lot of time.
Luckily, theres eLearning authoring software for that. Because an eLearning authoring tool can help you create cool online courses fast and without breaking the bank. In this post, were taking a look at 11 content authoring tools to make your courses shine.
But this article isnt just a trends list with the best eLearning authoring tools for 2020. Its a list of the most prominent, established players that have been in the market for so long that have proven how powerful they are.
Keep reading to find out about: What is an authoring tool?
If youre new to the world of eLearning, the term might look a little confusing. But its much simpler than it sounds.
All content authoring tools help users produce digital online content text included. But in the world of online learning and training, authoring tools are far more than just a simple tool where you can create your first draft.
So, if youre asking what an eLearning authoring tool is, you are basically asking yourself how to create an online course or eLearning content in general. Because this is what authoring tools are: the only medium to produce online courses by adding various types of content and media.
And heres a detailed list of the best of them. Authoring tools for beginners
If youre a beginner who might not even know what eLearning software instructional designers use, you want to start small with basic tools that will just get you started. This is why, in this category, youll find the four best authoring tools for beginners so you can start experimenting without getting lost in manuals and product tours. Elucidat
First of all, Elucidat is cloud-based. So, were talking about an extra layer of security since everything is stored and backed up automatically. As a result, beginners dont have to worry about backups while playing around with a new tool theyre trying to explore.
With an extensive library of pre-built templates (and of course the ability to build a course from scratch), Elucidat allows you to explore its features and capabilities from the moment you log in.
Whats even greater, though, is that it also grows as you grow. When you reach a point where you need more sophisticated tools from your authoring tool, Elucidat is there for you. Create interactive eLearning content with gamification, social polling, and interactive elements that will hook your learners right from the very beginning.
Go with Elucidat if you:
Want your courses to be interactive
Need an easy-to-use, intuitive interface while building your courses
Are all about collaboration multiple authors can work on the same course
Look elsewhere if you:
Dont have much time to fully understand the wide variety of tools it comes with
Want to see if instructional design is for you, and dont want to spend too much Camtasia
If youre an eLearning trends follower, you must have noticed that at least 90 of online courses rely a lot on video content. Sure, you might be looking for the best rapid authoring tool to create kickass courses. But, sooner or later, youre going to need a video platform.
Camtasia is perfect for this. With some advanced features such as screen and video recording, a course creator can engage learners by offering interactive video content. Whats more, Camtasia comes with reports on test scores that are sent to you daily to monitor your learners performance. And reporting is knowing!
Go with Camtasia if you:
Want not only a screen recorder but also a powerful video editor
Want your final videos to have no limits to their length
Need a tool to integrate with your presentation tools
Look elsewhere if you:
Need a web app and not a downloadable program
Dont want to pay every time you have to update to the most recent version Gomo
First of all, Gomo is a cloud-based eLearning authoring software tool. This means that it allows you to host your courses on the web or offline via the Gomo app.
Even though Gomos design is already attractive, to fully customize (and leverage) all the templates it comes with, you need to have a background in development. However, to create a basic, first course, all you have to do is access the quick start wizard and start building your course in just a few clicks.
Just like Elucidat, Gomo is a collaborative tool. This means that many creators can work on the same course at the same time no matter where in the world theyre located. In fact, Gomo is one of the few (and best) eLearning authoring tools that have geo-location in mind with various translating tools and geo-targeting options.
Go with Gomo if you:
Are a beginner and want to experiment with an authoring tool
Want to have your projects available on the cloud
Want to deliver your courses globally in multiple languages
Look elsewhere if you:
Usually look for a more modern, intuitive interface from your tools
Need freedom and not templated designs when building courses Easygenerator
As the name suggests, Easygenerator wants to make a creators life easier by providing the right tools that will get them up and running fast. But, of course, it comes with certain limitations.
As a tool that wants to automate the creative process, Easygenerator doesnt offer the variety of interactive elements that other eLearning content authoring tools come with. So, if branded eLearning content and uniqueness are among the things youre looking for in your courses, you might consider going with some other eLearning tools examples.
But if youre looking for the most accessible tool in the market right now to start authoring directly after you sign up, this might be an excellent fit for you.
Go with Easygenerator if you:
Are looking for a responsive design and mobile-friendly features
Rely on templates to create your learning environment
Look elsewhere if you:
Want 100 mobile delivery not all unit types are optimized for mobile use
Are thinking of building original course layouts from scratch Authoring tools for instructional designers
Are you an instructional designer who wants to level up their game by switching to a better alternative? Are you a newcomer who wants to dive right into the sophisticated, best eLearning software right off the bat?
Whatever the case might be, you want to keep reading for the best (and more advanced) eLearning authoring software that will help you deliver high-quality online courses youll be proud of. Articulate Storyline 360
If you are a Windows user, Articulate Storyline is one of the best tools you could ever go with.
The concept is quite simple: if you know how to create PowerPoint presentations, youll know how to create an engaging course with Articulate Storyline. Because it basically gives instructional designers the ability to develop high-end presentation slides that look stunning.
The idea might sound simple. But Articulate, by design, is a little complex and requires some extra eLearning authoring experience. And maybe this is why its one of the most popular choices in the online training community.
Go with Articulate Storyline 360 if you:
Want full control over the final look and feel of the course
Are looking for one of the most well-established tools in the market
Want your courses to look visually appealing
Look elsewhere if you:
Are not into software that requires local installation Articulate Rise 360
Unlike Articulate Storyline, Articulate Rise is a web-based eLearning authoring tool that instructional designers can use to create amazing courses. All in an easy-to-use and intuitive interface.
With many different unit types to choose from, instructional designers who dont have that much experience can create courses full of interactive elements that look as appealing as it gets. And maybe this is precisely why its on every best eLearning authoring tools list out there.
Rise 360 comes with course templates to choose from, which means that the range of visuals is not that unique, and courses (at least design-wise) might feel identical. However, after you spend some time with it and learn to use the tools it offers appropriately, you will be able to create stunning eLearning content.
Go with Articulate Rise 360 if you:
Need a cloud-based solution
Are all about modern interfaces
Want a simple, easy-to-use solution
Look elsewhere if you:
Dont want any storage or customization limitations Lectora Online
Lectora, as one of the first authoring tools to ever come out, grants many different features to produce a complete, engaging, and professional eLearning course. For years, Lectora was a Windows app only. In 2016, though, the company released a web version that allows everyone, no matter their operating system, to use the platform and thrive. Kali linux for mac .
Because if you want to excel in instructional design, you need Lectora.
As one of the best eLearning software options out there, it makes your life easier by offering a wide range of templates to choose from and edit according to your needs. But theres a catch. The tool, by default, is made for professional and experienced instructional designers who feel confident with advanced content authoring tools.
So, yes, Lectora is excellent. But make sure you get some experience before you purchase that license.
Go with Lectora if you:
Need a cloud-based solution
Are all about modern interfaces
Want a simple, easy-to-use solution
Look elsewhere if you:
Dont want any storage or customization limitations Adobe Captivate
We need to talk about one of the most powerful, best authoring tools for 2019, 2020, and maybe 20-forever.
Brought to you by a tech giant, Adobe Captivate doesnt just help instructional designers create courses that look amazing. It creates learning experiences.
But you have to do it from scratch. Because the course templates that Adobe Captivate offers arent very varied. Something that we cannot truly say about the quality of the features it comes with.
Course creators can record their screen on high quality, enable gamification and interactive features for their learners, and create an astonishing overall learning experience across devices. Of course, as a desktop-based app, collaboration and team-creation can prove quite hard, but this is only a tiny aspect of a perfectly designed tool that all professional designers should learn how to master.
Go with Adobe Captivate if you:
Like to work with advanced tools to engage learners (e.g., VR)
Are looking for a tool to produce interactive content
Want to create high-quality screen recordings
Look elsewhere if you:
Dont want to invest time in getting the hang of it
Want a tool where multiple authors can edit at the same time Active Presenter
The people behind Active Presenter figured out the importance of video in eLearning. This is why they created the ultimate tool to help instructional designers create top-notch video material for their courses.
Active Presenter is an online, user-friendly video editor that allows you to record your screen, a voiceover, and/or a video of yourself. After youve finished producing your audiovisuals, you get to edit like a pro.
Whats more, if you do it the right way and put the right types of content together, you get an interactive course with multiple tests and question types that Active Presenter includes. Dont be fooled, though. It might be easy to use, but it needs some instructional design experience to leverage its powers fully.
Go with Active Presenter if you:
Work with preset templates or you want to create your own
Want a solution to create videos for all platforms
Need an advanced video-editing tool
Look elsewhere if you:
Want a more modern interface design from your tools
Want to import video files created in different software Free or open-source eLearning authoring tools to consider
If youre on a tight budget or you simply want to test whether you have what it takes to make it in this industry, this category is for you.
The list below features open-source and free eLearning authoring tools so you can test the waters and update only when you feel confident. The two leading players in the free eLearning authoring tools category right now are Adapt and H5P.
Each one for their own reasons. Heres why: Adapt
The Adapt Builder is one of the most popular open-source eLearning authoring tools. And we know exactly why. First of all, branding-wise, its one of the most visually appealing builders on this list yes, paid included. But most importantly, it offers a wide variety of tools to create courses in just a few clicks.
Adapt is really user-friendly. Right after you sign up, you get access to a clean interface that allows you to build your course only by adding different content elements exactly where you want them to appear.
But if we had to pick one weakness, wed say that since its a product that has to do a lot with image, you might need the help of a graphic designer.
Go with Adapt if you:
Value cool interfaces
Want to add many different assessment types
Are looking for a SCORM authoring tool
Look elsewhere if you:
Dont want to have your learners scrolling while taking their course the concept is built on deep scrolling H5P
Lets fast-forward to what you need to, here: H5P is an easy-to-use, simple, and free eLearning authoring tool for newbies who want to see what building online courses is all about. But this doesnt mean that its not impressive. Help Logic Is An Help Authoring Solution For Mac Os
First of all, signing up takes less than five minutes. After that, youre immediately redirected to a page where you can choose among 20 different course templates.
Sadly, though, the visual components you can play with are limited. Ditto for the features. H5P, for example, does support publishing to SCORM, but only by using Tin Can API.
But when it comes to video content, it will definitely amaze you. H5P is among the best free authoring tools if you need to add a video (no, unfortunately, you cant record directly from the platform) and add interactive elements such as pop-ups, on-video questions, etc.
Go with H5P if you:
Are all for intuitive design
Want your learners to learn via interactive elements
Look elsewhere if you:
Want a video tool with video recording Next Steps
Now you know what software instructional designers use to create professional courses. Yes, authoring tools can help you generate training content that will engage as well as educate your online learners. But is this all that you need?
The answer is no. So, where do you go from here?
After youve finished developing your course, you need to put all this content youve created in your eLearning authoring software in an LMS. Because, at the end of the day, this is what will help you deliver a course to your learner.
An LMS with the right features will help create engaging content that your learners will enjoy using. When researching for the best LMS for you, make sure to check whether it includes gamification features. And, of course, a good LMS should offer reporting features for valuable insights into your training.
Save time, frustration and money with TalentLMS, the most-affordable and user-friendly learning management system on the market. Try it for free for as long as you want and discover why our customers consistently give us 4.5 stars (out of 5!)
Tags: Tools for Training and Development
These are the basic steps for creating a help book for OS X:
Design the help content.
Author the HTML help pages.
Organize the help book. This includes creating the necessary auxiliary files that Help Viewer uses.
Index the help book.
In addition, this chapter describes how you can include additional content in your help book and how you can localize your help book for other languages. Designing a Help Book
The first steps in authoring your help book are identifying the topics your help must cover and designing a layout for presenting these topics. To this end, you may find it useful to create a topic outline. If the software product for which you are creating help already has existing documentation, you may be able to base your outline on this material. If you are creating a help book from scratch, there are a number of ways you can approach the outline. A few examples:
Walk through the steps of the main task sequence in order. If you are writing help for a larger application, there may be several different task sequences a user would perform. For example, a productivity suite may have different task sequences for word processing, using spreadsheets, and creating presentations.
List topics alphabetically.
Go through each menu and menu item in the application sequentially.
Each topic should be simple enough to be described in a few short paragraphs on a single HTML page. If a topic is lengthy, you should consider breaking it up into smaller subtopics.
Here are some tips to keep in mind when designing your help book.
Divide the information into overview information and tasks. Overview information defines terms and explains concepts important to an understanding of your software product; task information gives step-by-step directions for accomplishing a particular goal. You should generally place these two kinds of information on separate help pages to give users quick access to the information they want. You can link between pages containing overview and task information when appropriate. Avoid including feature-oriented pages, which describe application features but dont tell users what they can do or how.
Identify any information you think youll need to give users more than once in a help book. You can write an individual help page to cover this information and link to it from other topics in the book to avoid duplication.
Build pages around four central questions:
What can users do?
Why do they want to do it?
How can they do it?
How can they solve problems doing it?
Depending upon the complexity of the task, a well-designed help page may cover each of the first three questions in one or two sentences and the fourth in two or three bullet points. Authoring Help Pages
After you have identified the subjects covered in your help book, you need to create HTML files for your help pages. To ensure that your help displays properly in Help Viewer, your help files should comply with the HTML 4.01 specification. Your main filewhich contains the AppleTitle meta tagshould conform to the XHTML 1.0 specification. For a comprehensive description of the HTML 4.01 specification, see HTML 4.01 Specification , W3C Recommendation 24 December 1999 ( http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/REC-html401-19991224/ ). XHTML is described in XHTML 1.0 The Extensible HyperText Markup Language (Second Edition) , W3C Recommendation 26 January 2000, revised 1 August 2002 ( http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/REC-xhtml1-20020801/ ).
Compatibility Note: If your help book is used only on OS X v10.4 or later, use HTML 4.01 and use XHTML for the main page that contains the AppleTitle meta tag. Help Viewer references this file often and formatting it as XHTML improves performance. If your help book is also used on OS X v10.3 or earlier, however, use HTML 3.2 and do not use XHTML for the main page. If you use XHTML in that case, your help book will not be indexed properly. Authoring Tools
You can author your help book in any application that generates valid HTML 4 files. Likewise, you can view your help book in any HTML 4qualified browser; however, you should always test your help book in Help Viewer to ensure that your help book displays properly. Creating Topic Pages
Each help page should cover only one topic, which can be expressed in a few short paragraphs. As mentioned in the section Designing a Help Book , your help book may contain both overview and task information. Overview pages define terms and concepts important to your application or offer other general information that users may need to know to understand your software product. For example, the help book page shown in Figure 2-1 describes application menus.
Task pages, on the other hand, offer a step-by-step description of the actions the user must take to perform a common task in your software product. The help book page shown in Figure 2-2 describes the steps necessary to change the background of a Finder window.
Topic pages typically include these elements:
A title identifying the topic. In Figure 2-1 , About application menus identifies the topic and indicates that the topic is informational, not task oriented. In Figure 2-2 , Changing a windows background indicates (by beginning with a verb) that the topic describes a procedure or task.
The topic introduction. For an overview page, this section describes what the user will learn about by reading this page. For a task-oriented page, the introduction indicates what the user will accomplish by performing the task.
Requirements for performing the task. For a task page, any conditions that must be met in order for the task to succeed should be mentioned up front, before the user begins the task. For example, if the help topic is 'Burning a CD,' the system requirementssuch as the presence of a CD burnerfor burning the CD should be mentioned here.
The task description. These are the steps that the user must perform to accomplish the given task. Overview pages typically do not contain this information.
The topic wrap-up. This includes any information the user may need in order to wrap up any task described in the page. It is also a good place to include tips, shortcuts, troubleshooting information, and links to related help topics. For example, the last paragraph shown in Figure 2-2 gives a hint the user might need in order to see a large picture in their Finder window.
Related topics. At the end of a topic is a list of links to other topics that are related to this one and thus might be of special interest to the user. Creating Navigation Pages
In addition to topic pages, you may need to create navigation pages for your help book. Users should be able to find most of the information they need by searching and navigating through links in your topic pages. However, navigation pages, such as tables of content, allow users to browse your help book and navigate to topics they want to learn more about without having a particular search topic in mind. You may consider providing a table of contents at the following levels:
Top level
Chapter level
Topic level
Including a table of contents on the title page, at the top level of your help book, allows the user to select a starting point within your help book. A title-page table of contents gets the user started in finding help, even if they do not quite know what they are looking for. Figure 2-3 shows the top-level table of contents for the Mail application.
As mentioned in Designing a Help Book , you should break complex topics with lengthy descriptions into smaller subtopics in order to keep each help topic short and focused. However, it may not be appropriate to include all of the subtopics directly in your main table of contents.
You can create navigation pages that contain links to sets of related subtopics. Figure 2-4 shows a high-level TOC page from Mac Help. If the user clicks one of the topics, a list of subtopics appears, giving information about each ( Figure 2-5 ). By clicking one of those subtopics, the user can get an information or task page for that subtopic ( Figure 2-6 ). Typically, this page also contains links to further information about this subtopic and to pages for related subtopics. Creating a Basic Help Book
After you create the HTML files containing your help content, you must organize them into a help book. To do this, create a help book folder and include the following items:
The topic and navigation pages. These are the HTML pages that you created for your help content, as described in Authoring Help Pages .
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A title page (also referred to as the default, landing, start, or access page). This is the XHTML file that is displayed by default when the user first opens your help book.
For an example of a help book to use as a starting point, see the files for Mail Help in /Applications/Mail.app/Contents/Resources/English.lproj/MailHelp/ . (Note that you have to select Show Package Contents from the contextual menu to see the contents of the Mail.app bundle.) Organizing the Help Book Bundle
Every help book must be enclosed in its own folder, which is in the Resources folder of the application bundle. The help book folder also contains a Resources folder. In the help books Resources folder, you put a folder for artwork that does not need to be localized and so is shared by all the localized versions of the help book. You then put as many localized versions of the help book as you need. At the top level of the localized help folder are the index file and the title page. The Application help bundle for the SurfWriter application would have the following structure:
SurfWriter.app/
Contents/
Resources/
SurfWriter.help/
The structure of the English-language help folder for SurfWriter help would look like this:
SurfWriter.help/
Contents/
Info.plist
Resources/
shrd/ shared artwork
English.lproj/
SurfWriter.html title page
SurfWriter.helpindex
ExactMatch.plist see Setting Up Exact Match Searching
InfoPlist.strings localized values for Info.plist
pgs/ the rest of the content pages
gfx/ localized artwork
scrpt/ scripts
The books icon and other nonlocalized graphics files are in the shrd folder. The pgs folder contains the localized HTML pages for all the help topics. The scrpt folder contains AppleScript and JavaScript scripts. The sty folder contains style sheets. Note that this is an example of a typical help folder, not a prescription for how you need to organize your help book. The index file, the title page, the exact match property list file (if anysee Setting Up Exact Match Searching ) and the localized values (if any) for the Info.plist should be located at the top level of the help folder.
The title page is described in the next section, Creating a Title Page . Index files are discussed in Indexing Your Help Book . The language names for the .lproj folders follow the standard Apple naming scheme, as discussed in Language and Locale Designations ( Internationalization and Localization Guide ). Referencing Graphics
The filepath reference in HTML img tags to artwork in the shrd/ folder should look like this:
On the accesspagename.html page:
On a content page in the pgs/ or other folders: The Info.plist File
Your Apple Help bundle must have an Info.plist file with these keys and values (all values are of type String ): Table 2-1 Help bundle Info.plist file keys and values
Key
Exact or sample value
Notes
CFBundleDevelopmentRegion
en_us
The same for all help components and localizations.
CFBundleIdentifier
com.mycompany.surfwriter.help
Non-localized way to refer to help book.
CFBundleInfoDictionaryVersion
6.0
CFBundleName
SurfWriter
CFBundlePackageType
BNDL
The same for all help components and localizations.
CFBundleShortVersionString
1
CFBundleSignature
hbwr
The same for all help components and localizations.
CFBundleVersion
1
Version of the content of the help book.
HPDBookAccessPath
SurfWriter.html
Path to the title page.
HPDBookIconPath
shrd/SurfIcn.png
Path to icon relative to Resources.
HPDBookIndexPath
SurfWriter.helpindex
Path to index file relative to the lproj.
HPDBookKBProduct
surfwriter1
KB tag code to identify the product.
HPDBookRemoteURL
https:
//help.mycompany.com/
snowleopard/com.mycompany.
surfwriter.help/r1/
URL to remote content.
HPDBookTitle
SurfWriter Help
Displays title in menu, title bar. Localized string must be included in InfoPlist.strings file.
HPDBookType
3
Help book type version number. Creating a Title Page
The title page is your help books default page, which appears when the user opens your help book by choosing the application help item from the Help menu in your application. The title page introduces your help book and serves as the entry point into the rest of your help content. All help books registered with the Help Viewer must have a title page.
There are many ways you can approach designing the title page for your help book. For example, the title page from Mac Help, the system help book, has a link to a help page that describes the new features in the current version of OS X, a link to a page that introduces the capabilities of the system, and offers a number of links to help pages answering common queries to get the reader started.
Figure 2-3 shows the title page for Mail Help. Indexing Your Help Book
To help users quickly find the information they need to accomplish their tasks, you should make your help book searchable by running the hiutil(1) command.
You should also include additional tags and metadata in your HTML help files to control how your help is indexed. Including this information improves the user experience of searching your help book by increasing the relevance of the results returned for searches of your help book and improving their appearance in Help Viewer. Controlling Indexing of Your Help describes how you can improve indexing and searching of your help book.
Compatibility Note: Starting with OS X v10.4, index files support several advanced features such as automatic creation of help-page abstracts. These index files have the suffix .helpindex . Help Viewer in OS X v10.3 and earlier, on the other hand, cannot read *.helpindex files. If you are writing help that must be compatible with OS X v10.3 and earlier, you cannot use UTF-8 character encoding and you must generate index files with the suffix idx (note the leading space) in addition to the *.helpindex files. The * idx index files do not support the new Help Viewer features. Controlling Indexing of Your Help
There are a number of tags that you can include in your HTML pages to control how your help content is indexed, such as:
Keywords . Keywords allow you to specify synonyms or common misspellings for a help topic, ensuring that users who search on these alternate terms still get a hit on the relevant topic.
Abstracts . An abstract is a brief summary of a help topic that is displayed when the user places the cursor over the topic in a list of search results. Users can determine whether they wish to learn more about the topic without actually loading the topic page.
Anchors . Anchors allow you to uniquely identify a topic or section within a page. Anchors help you provide quick access to help content; you can specify an anchor as the destination of a link or use the Apple Help API to search for and display the content identified by an anchor.
Finally, you can specify which content in your help book should be indexed, as described in Specifying What Is Indexed . By using these various elements in your help book, you can greatly improve the search results for your help book and make your help book more easily accessible from your application. Setting Keywords
Keywords are a set of additional search terms for an HTML help page. When a user searches your help book for a term that is designated as a keyword for a topic page, Help Viewer returns that page as a search result, even though the term may not appear in the body of the page. Using keywords, you can specify a set of synonyms and common misspellings for topics covered in your help book.
You can specify keywords for a help page using the keywords meta tag in the header of the help pages HTML file. The following example shows keywords that you could set for a help page that describes how to use the Trash:
Do not add keywords for terms that already occur on the page. Repeating a keyword that already appears on the page can cause the page to be given an incorrectly high relevance rating when Help Viewer returns it in response to a users query. Adding Abstracts
An abstract is a brief description of a help topic that appears when the user places the mouse cursor over that topic in a list of search results.
Well-written abstracts help users ascertain whether a given page, returned as a search result, in fact contains the information they were searching for. For example, SurfWriter Help contains a page describing how to import files from other formats. The pages title, Importing Files, gives the user some idea of the pages contents, but you can provide a fuller description by using an abstract phrase such as, SurfWriter can import files of the following formats: txt, rtf, pages, and doc.
To add an abstract to a help page, use the description meta tag in the header section of the pages HTML file. Here is an example of how to create such an abstract:
Example of a search result showing an abstract shows how such a page and its abstract show up as a search result. Setting Anchors
Anchors allow you to uniquely identify topics in your help book. When a user follows a link to an anchor, Help Viewer loads the page containing the anchor. If your link includes the specific file containing the anchor (such as SurfScript.htmlanchor1 ), Help Viewer scrolls to the anchor location (if it is not at the top of the page). For example, assume that SurfWriter has a simple scripting language called SurfScript. In the help page for SurfScript, you could specify a unique anchor for each SurfScript command, enabling Help Viewer to scroll directly to the desired text when the page loads.
If you use multiple files for your help book, you can put an anchor at the beginning of each file and direct links to the anchors so that you dont have to know the final locations of the help files when you code your HTML. To do so, you use the help:anchor URL provided by Apple Help in your link (see Creating a Link to an Anchor Location ).
You can also use anchors to load an anchored page from within your application by calling the the NSHelpManager method openHelpAnchor:inBook: or, for C applications, the Apple Help function AHLookupAnchor . To continue the example, SurfWriter could provide an online lookup function that loads the help page for a SurfScript command by calling the openHelpAnchor:inBook: method and passing the appropriate anchor name when a user Option-clicks a command name in a SurfScript document.
If you need to access your help content programmaticallyas you would, for example, if you provide contextually sensitive helpyou should consider using anchors to make your help easily accessible from your application. Because you can change the location of anchors within your help book without affecting your products code, anchors provide a simple and maintainable way for your application to access specific topics within your help book.
You specify an anchor using the standard HTML 4 anchor element, as shown in the following example, which creates an anchor called SurfScriptCommand_OPEN in a help page describing SurfScripts OPEN command:
You link to an anchor by using an HTML anchor element and a help:anchor URL:
The NSAlert , SFChooseIdentityPanel , SFCertificatePanel classes provide help buttons for dialogs. To display such a help button and link it to an anchor in your help book, use the methods setShowsHelp: and setHelpAnchor: in those classes. See NSAlert Class Reference , SFChooseIdentityPanel Class Reference , and SFCertificatePanel Class Reference for details. Specifying What Is Indexed
By default, each file in your help book is fully indexed. You can use the ROBOTS meta tag in the HTML header of a particular file to control how that file is indexed. The ROBOTS meta tag supports the values shown in Table 2-2 . Table 2-2 Values of the ROBOTS meta tag
Value
Meaning
NOINDEX
Specifies that the HTML file should not be indexed.
KEYWORDS
Specifies that the HTML file should be indexed for keywords only.
ANCHORS
Specifies that the HTML file should be indexed for anchors only.
Apple recommends that you do not index a page that contains only links or graphics, or a page on which you dont want the user to land as a result of a search. For example, if you have a sequence of pages that are linked in a series, you might only want to index the first page in the sequence. To specify that a file should not be indexed, use the ROBOTS meta tag with the value NOINDEX as shown in the following example:
Specify KEYWORDS as the value of the ROBOTS meta tag if you want the indexer to pick up only your specified keywords for use as search results. The ANCHORS value is useful for pages which you want to be able to retrieve using anchor lookup, but which are not useful as search results, such as your title page. Storing Pages on Remote Servers Help Logic Is An Help Authoring Solution For Mac Pro
Help Viewer can also download updated index files from a remote server. If you specified a remote URL in your help book's Info.plist file, Help Viewer contacts the server and checks for an index file at that location. If an index file is present, and if it is newer than the locally stored index, then Help Viewer downloads the file.
You can control how long your help pages are cached, using the two meta tags shown below: Help Logic Is An Help Authoring Solution For Macbook Pro
The first example sets a specific expiration date for the cached page. A 24-hour clock is used, and the time zone is included when specifying a particular expiration date. The second example tells Help Viewer that the file should never be cached. Adding Specialized Content to Your Help Book
You can enrich the user experience of your help book by including additional resources such as animated tutorials, scripted tasks, and other multimedia content supported by Help Viewer. This section shows you how to:
Initiate Help Viewer searches from a link in your help book
Link to anchors in your help book Opening an External Webpage in Help Viewer
When you include an http:// link in your help book HTML, Help Viewer ordinarily opens the link in the users default web browser. You can use the target='_helpViewer' attribute to cause the link to open in the Help Viewer window instead. For example, you can use a link of this sort to open a page on your customer service website in Help Viewer, making it appear to the user as if its part of your help book. Using Help URLs in Your Help Book
The URLs using the Help Viewer help: protocol, introduced in Help URLs , allow you to access other help content, including:
Initiating Help Viewer searches
Jumping to anchor locations
Opening other help books
Important: The syntax used for these URLs is specific to Apple Help. You need to follow the guidelines given here exactly or the links wont work as desired. Initiating a Search from Your Help Book
The help:search URL allows you to create a link in your help book that, when clicked by the user, initiates a search for a particular term or phrase. This is particularly useful for linking to further information about subjects that appear in multiple help pages. Rather than link to each topic page, you can simply set up a search that will find all pages in your help book in which the subject appears. The syntax for initiating a Help Viewer search is as follows:
The bookID parameter is a string value specifying which help book Help Viewer should search. If you do not specify a book, Help Viewer searches all help books currently installed on the system.
The following example creates a link to a search for topics related to importing files in the SurfWriter help book:
The value for the book ID should be the help book ID, as defined by the CFBundleIdentifier key in the books property list file.
When the user clicks the resulting link, Help Viewer searches SurfWriter Help for all topics pertaining to importing files, just as if the user had typed the query string 'importing files' into Help Viewers search field. Creating a Link to an Anchor Location
Using the help:anchor URL, you can create a link to any help book location identified by an anchor. It is often simpler to create links using anchors than to hardcode the path to the destination in the link, and it allows a link to be moved without having to update all the pages that point to it. The syntax for linking to an anchor location is as follows:
The bookID parameter is a string value identifying the help book in which Help Viewer should search for the anchor. If no help book is specified, Help Viewer searches all of the registered help books currently on the system. The following example creates a link to the topic on opening files in SurfWriter Help:
When the user clicks the link, Help Viewer takes the user to the location identified by the anchor named openfile. If more than one anchor is found matching the anchor name, Help Viewer displays all of the matching anchor locations in a search results page. To link to anchor locations in your help book, you must index your help book with anchor indexing turned on, as described in Anchor Indexing . Opening Other Help Books
You can use the help:openbook URL to open a specified help book in Help Viewer. You can use this URL, for example, to open the help book for a related application in an application suite. The syntax for opening a help book is as follows:
When the user clicks the link, Help Viewer opens the title page of the specified help book. For example, to create a link that opens the SurfWriter Help book to the title page, you would include the following code in your help book:
To create a link that jumps to a particular location in a help book, see Creating a Link to an Anchor Location . Setting Up Exact Match Searching
You can provide a list of search terms and corresponding search results. When the user enters a search term that exactly matches a term in your list, Help Viewer takes the corresponding search result from your list, gives it a relevance rating of 100, and displays it along with other search results. You can use an exact match search list, for example, to provide responses to search terms too short to normally be used in a search (such as CD) or to make sure that the most relevant results receive the highest relevance rating.
To set up exact match searching, you create a property list containing the search terms and search results and place the .plist file inside the appropriate .lproj folder, along with the title page and the help book index (see Organizing the Help Book Bundle ). The property list contains a set of key-value pairs. All keys and values are strings. Each key is a search term, specified as all lowercase with all spaces removed. Hyphens and other punctuation marks are not allowed. Each corresponding value is an anchor ID, and each anchor can be used in any number of help book pages. When a user enters a search term, Help Viewer takes a lowercase, spaces-removed version of the search string and compares it to the keys in the exact match property list. If it finds an exact match for the entire string, Help Viewer returns every page containing the referenced anchor string, assigns it a relevance rank of 100, adds it to the list of search results, and displays the results. Figure 2-8 shows the exact match property list from Mac Help. Figure 2-9 shows the search results displayed when the user searches for one of the terms in that property list. The top items in the search results, with rankings of 100, contain the anchor ID in the property list for that search term. Its important to note that exact match searching does not return results from stems or partial matches. If you want exact match search results for CD, CDs, 'VCD, and CD or DVD, for example, you need four entries in the property list: cd , cds , vcd , and cdordvd . Localizing Your Help Book
If your application will be used in more than one part of the world, your help book should be localized for every relevant language, country, or cultural region where it will be used. Localizing your help book involves translating the text of your help content and customizing graphics and other resources used in your help book.
This section shows you how you can ensure that your localized help content appears correctly in Help Viewer.
For more information on internationalization and HTML, see http://www.w3.org/International/ Language-Specific Resource Directories
For each language you support, you must provide a complete, localized help book in its own resource subdirectory within the Resources directory in the help bundle (see Organizing the Help Book Bundle ).
Each localized version of the help book must have a localized book name in the InfoPlist.strings file in the help bundle. Character Encoding
Help Viewer uses the UTF-8 character encoding exclusively. Indexing a Non-English Help Book
After you have created your localized help book, you must run the Help Indexer utility on each localization of the book. The use of UTF-8 character encoding enables Help Indexer to support all languages for indexers compatible with OS X v 10.4 and later. See the manual page for hiutil(1) for information about the indexer utility.
Copyright 2003, 2013 Apple Inc. All Rights Reserved. Terms of Use Privacy Policy Updated: 2013-01-28
Help Logic Is An Help Authoring Solution For Mac Os
Help Logic Is An Help Authoring Solution For Mac Pro
Help Logic Is An Help Authoring Solution For Macbook Pro
You want your courses to be fantastic. You want to catch your learners attention, engage them, and provide a flat learning curve experience. But designing a perfect learning experience can take a lot of time.
Luckily, theres eLearning authoring software for that. Because an eLearning authoring tool can help you create cool online courses fast and without breaking the bank. In this post, were taking a look at 11 content authoring tools to make your courses shine.
But this article isnt just a trends list with the best eLearning authoring tools for 2020. Its a list of the most prominent, established players that have been in the market for so long that have proven how powerful they are.
Keep reading to find out about: What is an authoring tool?
If youre new to the world of eLearning, the term might look a little confusing. But its much simpler than it sounds.
All content authoring tools help users produce digital online content text included. But in the world of online learning and training, authoring tools are far more than just a simple tool where you can create your first draft.
So, if youre asking what an eLearning authoring tool is, you are basically asking yourself how to create an online course or eLearning content in general. Because this is what authoring tools are: the only medium to produce online courses by adding various types of content and media.
And heres a detailed list of the best of them. Authoring tools for beginners
If youre a beginner who might not even know what eLearning software instructional designers use, you want to start small with basic tools that will just get you started. This is why, in this category, youll find the four best authoring tools for beginners so you can start experimenting without getting lost in manuals and product tours. Elucidat
First of all, Elucidat is cloud-based. So, were talking about an extra layer of security since everything is stored and backed up automatically. As a result, beginners dont have to worry about backups while playing around with a new tool theyre trying to explore.
With an extensive library of pre-built templates (and of course the ability to build a course from scratch), Elucidat allows you to explore its features and capabilities from the moment you log in.
Whats even greater, though, is that it also grows as you grow. When you reach a point where you need more sophisticated tools from your authoring tool, Elucidat is there for you. Create interactive eLearning content with gamification, social polling, and interactive elements that will hook your learners right from the very beginning.
Go with Elucidat if you:
Want your courses to be interactive
Need an easy-to-use, intuitive interface while building your courses
Are all about collaboration multiple authors can work on the same course
Look elsewhere if you:
Dont have much time to fully understand the wide variety of tools it comes with
Want to see if instructional design is for you, and dont want to spend too much Camtasia
If youre an eLearning trends follower, you must have noticed that at least 90 of online courses rely a lot on video content. Sure, you might be looking for the best rapid authoring tool to create kickass courses. But, sooner or later, youre going to need a video platform.
Camtasia is perfect for this. With some advanced features such as screen and video recording, a course creator can engage learners by offering interactive video content. Whats more, Camtasia comes with reports on test scores that are sent to you daily to monitor your learners performance. And reporting is knowing!
Go with Camtasia if you:
Want not only a screen recorder but also a powerful video editor
Want your final videos to have no limits to their length
Need a tool to integrate with your presentation tools
Look elsewhere if you:
Need a web app and not a downloadable program
Dont want to pay every time you have to update to the most recent version Gomo
First of all, Gomo is a cloud-based eLearning authoring software tool. This means that it allows you to host your courses on the web or offline via the Gomo app.
Even though Gomos design is already attractive, to fully customize (and leverage) all the templates it comes with, you need to have a background in development. However, to create a basic, first course, all you have to do is access the quick start wizard and start building your course in just a few clicks.
Just like Elucidat, Gomo is a collaborative tool. This means that many creators can work on the same course at the same time no matter where in the world theyre located. In fact, Gomo is one of the few (and best) eLearning authoring tools that have geo-location in mind with various translating tools and geo-targeting options.
Go with Gomo if you:
Are a beginner and want to experiment with an authoring tool
Want to have your projects available on the cloud
Want to deliver your courses globally in multiple languages
Look elsewhere if you:
Usually look for a more modern, intuitive interface from your tools
Need freedom and not templated designs when building courses Easygenerator
As the name suggests, Easygenerator wants to make a creators life easier by providing the right tools that will get them up and running fast. But, of course, it comes with certain limitations.
As a tool that wants to automate the creative process, Easygenerator doesnt offer the variety of interactive elements that other eLearning content authoring tools come with. So, if branded eLearning content and uniqueness are among the things youre looking for in your courses, you might consider going with some other eLearning tools examples.
But if youre looking for the most accessible tool in the market right now to start authoring directly after you sign up, this might be an excellent fit for you.
Go with Easygenerator if you:
Are looking for a responsive design and mobile-friendly features
Rely on templates to create your learning environment
Look elsewhere if you:
Want 100 mobile delivery not all unit types are optimized for mobile use
Are thinking of building original course layouts from scratch Authoring tools for instructional designers
Are you an instructional designer who wants to level up their game by switching to a better alternative? Are you a newcomer who wants to dive right into the sophisticated, best eLearning software right off the bat?
Whatever the case might be, you want to keep reading for the best (and more advanced) eLearning authoring software that will help you deliver high-quality online courses youll be proud of. Articulate Storyline 360
If you are a Windows user, Articulate Storyline is one of the best tools you could ever go with.
The concept is quite simple: if you know how to create PowerPoint presentations, youll know how to create an engaging course with Articulate Storyline. Because it basically gives instructional designers the ability to develop high-end presentation slides that look stunning.
The idea might sound simple. But Articulate, by design, is a little complex and requires some extra eLearning authoring experience. And maybe this is why its one of the most popular choices in the online training community.
Go with Articulate Storyline 360 if you:
Want full control over the final look and feel of the course
Are looking for one of the most well-established tools in the market
Want your courses to look visually appealing
Look elsewhere if you:
Are not into software that requires local installation Articulate Rise 360
Unlike Articulate Storyline, Articulate Rise is a web-based eLearning authoring tool that instructional designers can use to create amazing courses. All in an easy-to-use and intuitive interface.
With many different unit types to choose from, instructional designers who dont have that much experience can create courses full of interactive elements that look as appealing as it gets. And maybe this is precisely why its on every best eLearning authoring tools list out there.
Rise 360 comes with course templates to choose from, which means that the range of visuals is not that unique, and courses (at least design-wise) might feel identical. However, after you spend some time with it and learn to use the tools it offers appropriately, you will be able to create stunning eLearning content.
Go with Articulate Rise 360 if you:
Need a cloud-based solution
Are all about modern interfaces
Want a simple, easy-to-use solution
Look elsewhere if you:
Dont want any storage or customization limitations Lectora Online
Lectora, as one of the first authoring tools to ever come out, grants many different features to produce a complete, engaging, and professional eLearning course. For years, Lectora was a Windows app only. In 2016, though, the company released a web version that allows everyone, no matter their operating system, to use the platform and thrive. Kali linux for mac .
Because if you want to excel in instructional design, you need Lectora.
As one of the best eLearning software options out there, it makes your life easier by offering a wide range of templates to choose from and edit according to your needs. But theres a catch. The tool, by default, is made for professional and experienced instructional designers who feel confident with advanced content authoring tools.
So, yes, Lectora is excellent. But make sure you get some experience before you purchase that license.
Go with Lectora if you:
Need a cloud-based solution
Are all about modern interfaces
Want a simple, easy-to-use solution
Look elsewhere if you:
Dont want any storage or customization limitations Adobe Captivate
We need to talk about one of the most powerful, best authoring tools for 2019, 2020, and maybe 20-forever.
Brought to you by a tech giant, Adobe Captivate doesnt just help instructional designers create courses that look amazing. It creates learning experiences.
But you have to do it from scratch. Because the course templates that Adobe Captivate offers arent very varied. Something that we cannot truly say about the quality of the features it comes with.
Course creators can record their screen on high quality, enable gamification and interactive features for their learners, and create an astonishing overall learning experience across devices. Of course, as a desktop-based app, collaboration and team-creation can prove quite hard, but this is only a tiny aspect of a perfectly designed tool that all professional designers should learn how to master.
Go with Adobe Captivate if you:
Like to work with advanced tools to engage learners (e.g., VR)
Are looking for a tool to produce interactive content
Want to create high-quality screen recordings
Look elsewhere if you:
Dont want to invest time in getting the hang of it
Want a tool where multiple authors can edit at the same time Active Presenter
The people behind Active Presenter figured out the importance of video in eLearning. This is why they created the ultimate tool to help instructional designers create top-notch video material for their courses.
Active Presenter is an online, user-friendly video editor that allows you to record your screen, a voiceover, and/or a video of yourself. After youve finished producing your audiovisuals, you get to edit like a pro.
Whats more, if you do it the right way and put the right types of content together, you get an interactive course with multiple tests and question types that Active Presenter includes. Dont be fooled, though. It might be easy to use, but it needs some instructional design experience to leverage its powers fully.
Go with Active Presenter if you:
Work with preset templates or you want to create your own
Want a solution to create videos for all platforms
Need an advanced video-editing tool
Look elsewhere if you:
Want a more modern interface design from your tools
Want to import video files created in different software Free or open-source eLearning authoring tools to consider
If youre on a tight budget or you simply want to test whether you have what it takes to make it in this industry, this category is for you.
The list below features open-source and free eLearning authoring tools so you can test the waters and update only when you feel confident. The two leading players in the free eLearning authoring tools category right now are Adapt and H5P.
Each one for their own reasons. Heres why: Adapt
The Adapt Builder is one of the most popular open-source eLearning authoring tools. And we know exactly why. First of all, branding-wise, its one of the most visually appealing builders on this list yes, paid included. But most importantly, it offers a wide variety of tools to create courses in just a few clicks.
Adapt is really user-friendly. Right after you sign up, you get access to a clean interface that allows you to build your course only by adding different content elements exactly where you want them to appear.
But if we had to pick one weakness, wed say that since its a product that has to do a lot with image, you might need the help of a graphic designer.
Go with Adapt if you:
Value cool interfaces
Want to add many different assessment types
Are looking for a SCORM authoring tool
Look elsewhere if you:
Dont want to have your learners scrolling while taking their course the concept is built on deep scrolling H5P
Lets fast-forward to what you need to, here: H5P is an easy-to-use, simple, and free eLearning authoring tool for newbies who want to see what building online courses is all about. But this doesnt mean that its not impressive. Help Logic Is An Help Authoring Solution For Mac Os
First of all, signing up takes less than five minutes. After that, youre immediately redirected to a page where you can choose among 20 different course templates.
Sadly, though, the visual components you can play with are limited. Ditto for the features. H5P, for example, does support publishing to SCORM, but only by using Tin Can API.
But when it comes to video content, it will definitely amaze you. H5P is among the best free authoring tools if you need to add a video (no, unfortunately, you cant record directly from the platform) and add interactive elements such as pop-ups, on-video questions, etc.
Go with H5P if you:
Are all for intuitive design
Want your learners to learn via interactive elements
Look elsewhere if you:
Want a video tool with video recording Next Steps
Now you know what software instructional designers use to create professional courses. Yes, authoring tools can help you generate training content that will engage as well as educate your online learners. But is this all that you need?
The answer is no. So, where do you go from here?
After youve finished developing your course, you need to put all this content youve created in your eLearning authoring software in an LMS. Because, at the end of the day, this is what will help you deliver a course to your learner.
An LMS with the right features will help create engaging content that your learners will enjoy using. When researching for the best LMS for you, make sure to check whether it includes gamification features. And, of course, a good LMS should offer reporting features for valuable insights into your training.
Save time, frustration and money with TalentLMS, the most-affordable and user-friendly learning management system on the market. Try it for free for as long as you want and discover why our customers consistently give us 4.5 stars (out of 5!)
Tags: Tools for Training and Development
These are the basic steps for creating a help book for OS X:
Design the help content.
Author the HTML help pages.
Organize the help book. This includes creating the necessary auxiliary files that Help Viewer uses.
Index the help book.
In addition, this chapter describes how you can include additional content in your help book and how you can localize your help book for other languages. Designing a Help Book
The first steps in authoring your help book are identifying the topics your help must cover and designing a layout for presenting these topics. To this end, you may find it useful to create a topic outline. If the software product for which you are creating help already has existing documentation, you may be able to base your outline on this material. If you are creating a help book from scratch, there are a number of ways you can approach the outline. A few examples:
Walk through the steps of the main task sequence in order. If you are writing help for a larger application, there may be several different task sequences a user would perform. For example, a productivity suite may have different task sequences for word processing, using spreadsheets, and creating presentations.
List topics alphabetically.
Go through each menu and menu item in the application sequentially.
Each topic should be simple enough to be described in a few short paragraphs on a single HTML page. If a topic is lengthy, you should consider breaking it up into smaller subtopics.
Here are some tips to keep in mind when designing your help book.
Divide the information into overview information and tasks. Overview information defines terms and explains concepts important to an understanding of your software product; task information gives step-by-step directions for accomplishing a particular goal. You should generally place these two kinds of information on separate help pages to give users quick access to the information they want. You can link between pages containing overview and task information when appropriate. Avoid including feature-oriented pages, which describe application features but dont tell users what they can do or how.
Identify any information you think youll need to give users more than once in a help book. You can write an individual help page to cover this information and link to it from other topics in the book to avoid duplication.
Build pages around four central questions:
What can users do?
Why do they want to do it?
How can they do it?
How can they solve problems doing it?
Depending upon the complexity of the task, a well-designed help page may cover each of the first three questions in one or two sentences and the fourth in two or three bullet points. Authoring Help Pages
After you have identified the subjects covered in your help book, you need to create HTML files for your help pages. To ensure that your help displays properly in Help Viewer, your help files should comply with the HTML 4.01 specification. Your main filewhich contains the AppleTitle meta tagshould conform to the XHTML 1.0 specification. For a comprehensive description of the HTML 4.01 specification, see HTML 4.01 Specification , W3C Recommendation 24 December 1999 ( http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/REC-html401-19991224/ ). XHTML is described in XHTML 1.0 The Extensible HyperText Markup Language (Second Edition) , W3C Recommendation 26 January 2000, revised 1 August 2002 ( http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/REC-xhtml1-20020801/ ).
Compatibility Note: If your help book is used only on OS X v10.4 or later, use HTML 4.01 and use XHTML for the main page that contains the AppleTitle meta tag. Help Viewer references this file often and formatting it as XHTML improves performance. If your help book is also used on OS X v10.3 or earlier, however, use HTML 3.2 and do not use XHTML for the main page. If you use XHTML in that case, your help book will not be indexed properly. Authoring Tools
You can author your help book in any application that generates valid HTML 4 files. Likewise, you can view your help book in any HTML 4qualified browser; however, you should always test your help book in Help Viewer to ensure that your help book displays properly. Creating Topic Pages
Each help page should cover only one topic, which can be expressed in a few short paragraphs. As mentioned in the section Designing a Help Book , your help book may contain both overview and task information. Overview pages define terms and concepts important to your application or offer other general information that users may need to know to understand your software product. For example, the help book page shown in Figure 2-1 describes application menus.
Task pages, on the other hand, offer a step-by-step description of the actions the user must take to perform a common task in your software product. The help book page shown in Figure 2-2 describes the steps necessary to change the background of a Finder window.
Topic pages typically include these elements:
A title identifying the topic. In Figure 2-1 , About application menus identifies the topic and indicates that the topic is informational, not task oriented. In Figure 2-2 , Changing a windows background indicates (by beginning with a verb) that the topic describes a procedure or task.
The topic introduction. For an overview page, this section describes what the user will learn about by reading this page. For a task-oriented page, the introduction indicates what the user will accomplish by performing the task.
Requirements for performing the task. For a task page, any conditions that must be met in order for the task to succeed should be mentioned up front, before the user begins the task. For example, if the help topic is 'Burning a CD,' the system requirementssuch as the presence of a CD burnerfor burning the CD should be mentioned here.
The task description. These are the steps that the user must perform to accomplish the given task. Overview pages typically do not contain this information.
The topic wrap-up. This includes any information the user may need in order to wrap up any task described in the page. It is also a good place to include tips, shortcuts, troubleshooting information, and links to related help topics. For example, the last paragraph shown in Figure 2-2 gives a hint the user might need in order to see a large picture in their Finder window.
Related topics. At the end of a topic is a list of links to other topics that are related to this one and thus might be of special interest to the user. Creating Navigation Pages
In addition to topic pages, you may need to create navigation pages for your help book. Users should be able to find most of the information they need by searching and navigating through links in your topic pages. However, navigation pages, such as tables of content, allow users to browse your help book and navigate to topics they want to learn more about without having a particular search topic in mind. You may consider providing a table of contents at the following levels:
Top level
Chapter level
Topic level
Including a table of contents on the title page, at the top level of your help book, allows the user to select a starting point within your help book. A title-page table of contents gets the user started in finding help, even if they do not quite know what they are looking for. Figure 2-3 shows the top-level table of contents for the Mail application.
As mentioned in Designing a Help Book , you should break complex topics with lengthy descriptions into smaller subtopics in order to keep each help topic short and focused. However, it may not be appropriate to include all of the subtopics directly in your main table of contents.
You can create navigation pages that contain links to sets of related subtopics. Figure 2-4 shows a high-level TOC page from Mac Help. If the user clicks one of the topics, a list of subtopics appears, giving information about each ( Figure 2-5 ). By clicking one of those subtopics, the user can get an information or task page for that subtopic ( Figure 2-6 ). Typically, this page also contains links to further information about this subtopic and to pages for related subtopics. Creating a Basic Help Book
After you create the HTML files containing your help content, you must organize them into a help book. To do this, create a help book folder and include the following items:
The topic and navigation pages. These are the HTML pages that you created for your help content, as described in Authoring Help Pages .
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A title page (also referred to as the default, landing, start, or access page). This is the XHTML file that is displayed by default when the user first opens your help book.
For an example of a help book to use as a starting point, see the files for Mail Help in /Applications/Mail.app/Contents/Resources/English.lproj/MailHelp/ . (Note that you have to select Show Package Contents from the contextual menu to see the contents of the Mail.app bundle.) Organizing the Help Book Bundle
Every help book must be enclosed in its own folder, which is in the Resources folder of the application bundle. The help book folder also contains a Resources folder. In the help books Resources folder, you put a folder for artwork that does not need to be localized and so is shared by all the localized versions of the help book. You then put as many localized versions of the help book as you need. At the top level of the localized help folder are the index file and the title page. The Application help bundle for the SurfWriter application would have the following structure:
SurfWriter.app/
Contents/
Resources/
SurfWriter.help/
The structure of the English-language help folder for SurfWriter help would look like this:
SurfWriter.help/
Contents/
Info.plist
Resources/
shrd/ shared artwork
English.lproj/
SurfWriter.html title page
SurfWriter.helpindex
ExactMatch.plist see Setting Up Exact Match Searching
InfoPlist.strings localized values for Info.plist
pgs/ the rest of the content pages
gfx/ localized artwork
scrpt/ scripts
The books icon and other nonlocalized graphics files are in the shrd folder. The pgs folder contains the localized HTML pages for all the help topics. The scrpt folder contains AppleScript and JavaScript scripts. The sty folder contains style sheets. Note that this is an example of a typical help folder, not a prescription for how you need to organize your help book. The index file, the title page, the exact match property list file (if anysee Setting Up Exact Match Searching ) and the localized values (if any) for the Info.plist should be located at the top level of the help folder.
The title page is described in the next section, Creating a Title Page . Index files are discussed in Indexing Your Help Book . The language names for the .lproj folders follow the standard Apple naming scheme, as discussed in Language and Locale Designations ( Internationalization and Localization Guide ). Referencing Graphics
The filepath reference in HTML img tags to artwork in the shrd/ folder should look like this:
On the accesspagename.html page:
On a content page in the pgs/ or other folders: The Info.plist File
Your Apple Help bundle must have an Info.plist file with these keys and values (all values are of type String ): Table 2-1 Help bundle Info.plist file keys and values
Key
Exact or sample value
Notes
CFBundleDevelopmentRegion
en_us
The same for all help components and localizations.
CFBundleIdentifier
com.mycompany.surfwriter.help
Non-localized way to refer to help book.
CFBundleInfoDictionaryVersion
6.0
CFBundleName
SurfWriter
CFBundlePackageType
BNDL
The same for all help components and localizations.
CFBundleShortVersionString
1
CFBundleSignature
hbwr
The same for all help components and localizations.
CFBundleVersion
1
Version of the content of the help book.
HPDBookAccessPath
SurfWriter.html
Path to the title page.
HPDBookIconPath
shrd/SurfIcn.png
Path to icon relative to Resources.
HPDBookIndexPath
SurfWriter.helpindex
Path to index file relative to the lproj.
HPDBookKBProduct
surfwriter1
KB tag code to identify the product.
HPDBookRemoteURL
https:
//help.mycompany.com/
snowleopard/com.mycompany.
surfwriter.help/r1/
URL to remote content.
HPDBookTitle
SurfWriter Help
Displays title in menu, title bar. Localized string must be included in InfoPlist.strings file.
HPDBookType
3
Help book type version number. Creating a Title Page
The title page is your help books default page, which appears when the user opens your help book by choosing the application help item from the Help menu in your application. The title page introduces your help book and serves as the entry point into the rest of your help content. All help books registered with the Help Viewer must have a title page.
There are many ways you can approach designing the title page for your help book. For example, the title page from Mac Help, the system help book, has a link to a help page that describes the new features in the current version of OS X, a link to a page that introduces the capabilities of the system, and offers a number of links to help pages answering common queries to get the reader started.
Figure 2-3 shows the title page for Mail Help. Indexing Your Help Book
To help users quickly find the information they need to accomplish their tasks, you should make your help book searchable by running the hiutil(1) command.
You should also include additional tags and metadata in your HTML help files to control how your help is indexed. Including this information improves the user experience of searching your help book by increasing the relevance of the results returned for searches of your help book and improving their appearance in Help Viewer. Controlling Indexing of Your Help describes how you can improve indexing and searching of your help book.
Compatibility Note: Starting with OS X v10.4, index files support several advanced features such as automatic creation of help-page abstracts. These index files have the suffix .helpindex . Help Viewer in OS X v10.3 and earlier, on the other hand, cannot read *.helpindex files. If you are writing help that must be compatible with OS X v10.3 and earlier, you cannot use UTF-8 character encoding and you must generate index files with the suffix idx (note the leading space) in addition to the *.helpindex files. The * idx index files do not support the new Help Viewer features. Controlling Indexing of Your Help
There are a number of tags that you can include in your HTML pages to control how your help content is indexed, such as:
Keywords . Keywords allow you to specify synonyms or common misspellings for a help topic, ensuring that users who search on these alternate terms still get a hit on the relevant topic.
Abstracts . An abstract is a brief summary of a help topic that is displayed when the user places the cursor over the topic in a list of search results. Users can determine whether they wish to learn more about the topic without actually loading the topic page.
Anchors . Anchors allow you to uniquely identify a topic or section within a page. Anchors help you provide quick access to help content; you can specify an anchor as the destination of a link or use the Apple Help API to search for and display the content identified by an anchor.
Finally, you can specify which content in your help book should be indexed, as described in Specifying What Is Indexed . By using these various elements in your help book, you can greatly improve the search results for your help book and make your help book more easily accessible from your application. Setting Keywords
Keywords are a set of additional search terms for an HTML help page. When a user searches your help book for a term that is designated as a keyword for a topic page, Help Viewer returns that page as a search result, even though the term may not appear in the body of the page. Using keywords, you can specify a set of synonyms and common misspellings for topics covered in your help book.
You can specify keywords for a help page using the keywords meta tag in the header of the help pages HTML file. The following example shows keywords that you could set for a help page that describes how to use the Trash:
Do not add keywords for terms that already occur on the page. Repeating a keyword that already appears on the page can cause the page to be given an incorrectly high relevance rating when Help Viewer returns it in response to a users query. Adding Abstracts
An abstract is a brief description of a help topic that appears when the user places the mouse cursor over that topic in a list of search results.
Well-written abstracts help users ascertain whether a given page, returned as a search result, in fact contains the information they were searching for. For example, SurfWriter Help contains a page describing how to import files from other formats. The pages title, Importing Files, gives the user some idea of the pages contents, but you can provide a fuller description by using an abstract phrase such as, SurfWriter can import files of the following formats: txt, rtf, pages, and doc.
To add an abstract to a help page, use the description meta tag in the header section of the pages HTML file. Here is an example of how to create such an abstract:
Example of a search result showing an abstract shows how such a page and its abstract show up as a search result. Setting Anchors
Anchors allow you to uniquely identify topics in your help book. When a user follows a link to an anchor, Help Viewer loads the page containing the anchor. If your link includes the specific file containing the anchor (such as SurfScript.htmlanchor1 ), Help Viewer scrolls to the anchor location (if it is not at the top of the page). For example, assume that SurfWriter has a simple scripting language called SurfScript. In the help page for SurfScript, you could specify a unique anchor for each SurfScript command, enabling Help Viewer to scroll directly to the desired text when the page loads.
If you use multiple files for your help book, you can put an anchor at the beginning of each file and direct links to the anchors so that you dont have to know the final locations of the help files when you code your HTML. To do so, you use the help:anchor URL provided by Apple Help in your link (see Creating a Link to an Anchor Location ).
You can also use anchors to load an anchored page from within your application by calling the the NSHelpManager method openHelpAnchor:inBook: or, for C applications, the Apple Help function AHLookupAnchor . To continue the example, SurfWriter could provide an online lookup function that loads the help page for a SurfScript command by calling the openHelpAnchor:inBook: method and passing the appropriate anchor name when a user Option-clicks a command name in a SurfScript document.
If you need to access your help content programmaticallyas you would, for example, if you provide contextually sensitive helpyou should consider using anchors to make your help easily accessible from your application. Because you can change the location of anchors within your help book without affecting your products code, anchors provide a simple and maintainable way for your application to access specific topics within your help book.
You specify an anchor using the standard HTML 4 anchor element, as shown in the following example, which creates an anchor called SurfScriptCommand_OPEN in a help page describing SurfScripts OPEN command:
You link to an anchor by using an HTML anchor element and a help:anchor URL:
The NSAlert , SFChooseIdentityPanel , SFCertificatePanel classes provide help buttons for dialogs. To display such a help button and link it to an anchor in your help book, use the methods setShowsHelp: and setHelpAnchor: in those classes. See NSAlert Class Reference , SFChooseIdentityPanel Class Reference , and SFCertificatePanel Class Reference for details. Specifying What Is Indexed
By default, each file in your help book is fully indexed. You can use the ROBOTS meta tag in the HTML header of a particular file to control how that file is indexed. The ROBOTS meta tag supports the values shown in Table 2-2 . Table 2-2 Values of the ROBOTS meta tag
Value
Meaning
NOINDEX
Specifies that the HTML file should not be indexed.
KEYWORDS
Specifies that the HTML file should be indexed for keywords only.
ANCHORS
Specifies that the HTML file should be indexed for anchors only.
Apple recommends that you do not index a page that contains only links or graphics, or a page on which you dont want the user to land as a result of a search. For example, if you have a sequence of pages that are linked in a series, you might only want to index the first page in the sequence. To specify that a file should not be indexed, use the ROBOTS meta tag with the value NOINDEX as shown in the following example:
Specify KEYWORDS as the value of the ROBOTS meta tag if you want the indexer to pick up only your specified keywords for use as search results. The ANCHORS value is useful for pages which you want to be able to retrieve using anchor lookup, but which are not useful as search results, such as your title page. Storing Pages on Remote Servers Help Logic Is An Help Authoring Solution For Mac Pro
Help Viewer can also download updated index files from a remote server. If you specified a remote URL in your help book's Info.plist file, Help Viewer contacts the server and checks for an index file at that location. If an index file is present, and if it is newer than the locally stored index, then Help Viewer downloads the file.
You can control how long your help pages are cached, using the two meta tags shown below: Help Logic Is An Help Authoring Solution For Macbook Pro
The first example sets a specific expiration date for the cached page. A 24-hour clock is used, and the time zone is included when specifying a particular expiration date. The second example tells Help Viewer that the file should never be cached. Adding Specialized Content to Your Help Book
You can enrich the user experience of your help book by including additional resources such as animated tutorials, scripted tasks, and other multimedia content supported by Help Viewer. This section shows you how to:
Initiate Help Viewer searches from a link in your help book
Link to anchors in your help book Opening an External Webpage in Help Viewer
When you include an http:// link in your help book HTML, Help Viewer ordinarily opens the link in the users default web browser. You can use the target='_helpViewer' attribute to cause the link to open in the Help Viewer window instead. For example, you can use a link of this sort to open a page on your customer service website in Help Viewer, making it appear to the user as if its part of your help book. Using Help URLs in Your Help Book
The URLs using the Help Viewer help: protocol, introduced in Help URLs , allow you to access other help content, including:
Initiating Help Viewer searches
Jumping to anchor locations
Opening other help books
Important: The syntax used for these URLs is specific to Apple Help. You need to follow the guidelines given here exactly or the links wont work as desired. Initiating a Search from Your Help Book
The help:search URL allows you to create a link in your help book that, when clicked by the user, initiates a search for a particular term or phrase. This is particularly useful for linking to further information about subjects that appear in multiple help pages. Rather than link to each topic page, you can simply set up a search that will find all pages in your help book in which the subject appears. The syntax for initiating a Help Viewer search is as follows:
The bookID parameter is a string value specifying which help book Help Viewer should search. If you do not specify a book, Help Viewer searches all help books currently installed on the system.
The following example creates a link to a search for topics related to importing files in the SurfWriter help book:
The value for the book ID should be the help book ID, as defined by the CFBundleIdentifier key in the books property list file.
When the user clicks the resulting link, Help Viewer searches SurfWriter Help for all topics pertaining to importing files, just as if the user had typed the query string 'importing files' into Help Viewers search field. Creating a Link to an Anchor Location
Using the help:anchor URL, you can create a link to any help book location identified by an anchor. It is often simpler to create links using anchors than to hardcode the path to the destination in the link, and it allows a link to be moved without having to update all the pages that point to it. The syntax for linking to an anchor location is as follows:
The bookID parameter is a string value identifying the help book in which Help Viewer should search for the anchor. If no help book is specified, Help Viewer searches all of the registered help books currently on the system. The following example creates a link to the topic on opening files in SurfWriter Help:
When the user clicks the link, Help Viewer takes the user to the location identified by the anchor named openfile. If more than one anchor is found matching the anchor name, Help Viewer displays all of the matching anchor locations in a search results page. To link to anchor locations in your help book, you must index your help book with anchor indexing turned on, as described in Anchor Indexing . Opening Other Help Books
You can use the help:openbook URL to open a specified help book in Help Viewer. You can use this URL, for example, to open the help book for a related application in an application suite. The syntax for opening a help book is as follows:
When the user clicks the link, Help Viewer opens the title page of the specified help book. For example, to create a link that opens the SurfWriter Help book to the title page, you would include the following code in your help book:
To create a link that jumps to a particular location in a help book, see Creating a Link to an Anchor Location . Setting Up Exact Match Searching
You can provide a list of search terms and corresponding search results. When the user enters a search term that exactly matches a term in your list, Help Viewer takes the corresponding search result from your list, gives it a relevance rating of 100, and displays it along with other search results. You can use an exact match search list, for example, to provide responses to search terms too short to normally be used in a search (such as CD) or to make sure that the most relevant results receive the highest relevance rating.
To set up exact match searching, you create a property list containing the search terms and search results and place the .plist file inside the appropriate .lproj folder, along with the title page and the help book index (see Organizing the Help Book Bundle ). The property list contains a set of key-value pairs. All keys and values are strings. Each key is a search term, specified as all lowercase with all spaces removed. Hyphens and other punctuation marks are not allowed. Each corresponding value is an anchor ID, and each anchor can be used in any number of help book pages. When a user enters a search term, Help Viewer takes a lowercase, spaces-removed version of the search string and compares it to the keys in the exact match property list. If it finds an exact match for the entire string, Help Viewer returns every page containing the referenced anchor string, assigns it a relevance rank of 100, adds it to the list of search results, and displays the results. Figure 2-8 shows the exact match property list from Mac Help. Figure 2-9 shows the search results displayed when the user searches for one of the terms in that property list. The top items in the search results, with rankings of 100, contain the anchor ID in the property list for that search term. Its important to note that exact match searching does not return results from stems or partial matches. If you want exact match search results for CD, CDs, 'VCD, and CD or DVD, for example, you need four entries in the property list: cd , cds , vcd , and cdordvd . Localizing Your Help Book
If your application will be used in more than one part of the world, your help book should be localized for every relevant language, country, or cultural region where it will be used. Localizing your help book involves translating the text of your help content and customizing graphics and other resources used in your help book.
This section shows you how you can ensure that your localized help content appears correctly in Help Viewer.
For more information on internationalization and HTML, see http://www.w3.org/International/ Language-Specific Resource Directories
For each language you support, you must provide a complete, localized help book in its own resource subdirectory within the Resources directory in the help bundle (see Organizing the Help Book Bundle ).
Each localized version of the help book must have a localized book name in the InfoPlist.strings file in the help bundle. Character Encoding
Help Viewer uses the UTF-8 character encoding exclusively. Indexing a Non-English Help Book
After you have created your localized help book, you must run the Help Indexer utility on each localization of the book. The use of UTF-8 character encoding enables Help Indexer to support all languages for indexers compatible with OS X v 10.4 and later. See the manual page for hiutil(1) for information about the indexer utility.
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