Try Hi HelpIndex out in the Bean Development Kit (BDK) Beanbox.
Try Hi HelpIndex and Brow in our HiDemo application.
The developer must set up index and language files for their site map.
Currently this is usually done in the Hi Lab Windows tool.
A rudimentary Java application MakeHelpIndex is also available.
In future, we hope to provide a full bean Customiser to match the Hi Lab functionality.
Typically there will be three types of user.
In these development tools, the developer can set the properties
for Hi HelpIndex at design time.
Events can be set up visually to link Hi HelpIndex to or from other beans.
JavaScript and Java program code also be used to control the operation of
Hi HelpIndex at run time.
The Hi HelpIndex properties may be saved in a .ser "pickle file".
A useless bean customisater is provided; we will make this better!
Bean Files
The Hi HelpIndex bean file is called hi230d.jar
which includes files that are only needed at design time.
Development tools usually repackage the files that are needed for
an application into a new .jar file containing all the necessary bean files
as well as the application code.
However the supplied file hi230.jar contains all the run time
Hi HelpIndex files.
You may not redistribute the Hi HelpIndex design-time file hi230d.jar
with your application. However the run time only file described
above may be redistributed as a part of your application
(provided you have the appropriate licence).
The design-time bean file has basic help provided in English in COM/phdcc/hi/HelpIndex.html.
Design-time bean file contents:
Note that when run as an applet in Navigator 4, Navigator will not find the
default gif files in hi230.jar. So you will have to put these files in the same
directory as hi230.jar: hi.gif, hiicons.gif, hitabs.gif
(unless you provide alternates via parameters).
Licencing
If the Hi HelpIndex bean is just used on a single web site then
a standard Hi HelpIndex licence is sufficient.
However, if it is distributed elsewehere,
eg as a part of some software or information,
then you will need to purchase a Developer licence.
With a Developer Licence, you can distribute the Hi HelpIndex bean
royalty free in any number of programs.
Note that you can only develop sites or programs
using the bean on a single development computer.
Full Licence and Purchasing Information.
Possible Development Tools
The following development tools should be suitable for the
Hi HelpIndex bean, amongst others.
See the detailed notes below.
Netscape Visual JavaScript problems
Version 1.0 does not find the HelpIndex property editors,
so the index and
ButtonShape cannot be set.
It does run the Customizer properly though.
It gets the list of bean properties and assumes that the applet can be run
with these property names as parameter names, which is incorrect.
Borland JBuilder problems
Use the indexes property instead.
Clicking on the "..." edit button brings up the correct IndexEditor dialog.
Note that using "COM/phdcc/hi/bean.hi" does not seem to work in the editor
but absolute URLs, for example, do work.
For further information on an load errors, etc, in jbuilder.properties set jbuilder.logoutput to the name of an output file.
If you get a new version of a bean delete the
<jbuilder>\PME\COM.phdcc.hi.* file(s).