About JavaHelp

JavaHelp is an open standard for the creation, maintenance and distribution of platform independent online documentations by Sun Microsystems, Inc. Relying on other open standards such as HTML and XML it is a good basis for platform independent yet powerful online documentations of all kind.

Details about JavaHelp can be found at

http://java.sun.com/products/javahelp

JavaHelp Introduction

Most interactive applications require online help -- Java applications are no exception. The JavaHelp system is specifically tailored to the Java platform. The JavaHelp system provides developers and authors a standard, fully-featured, easy-to-use system for presenting online information to Java application users. Providing a help system standard that is part of the Java platform (standard extension to the JDK) relieves developers and authors of the task of inventing their own proprietary help systems.

The JavaHelp system consists of a fully featured, highly extensible specification and an implementation of that specification written entirely in the Java language. The implementation, based on the Java Foundation Classes (JFC), provides a very simple interface that allows application developers and authors to quickly and easily add online help to their applications. The specification enables developers to optionally customize and extend the help system to fit the style and requirements of their applications.

In addition, the JavaHelp system has been designed to work especially well in a variety of network environments. The JavaHelp system is platform independent and works in all browsers that support the Java platform.

The JavaHelp system enables Java developers to provide online help for:

JavaHelp Features

Table of Contents

Collapsible/expandable display of topics in the help system. Supports unlimited levels and merging of multiple TOCs. The underlying file format follows World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) standards. The TOC display is synchronized with the content viewer--the topic being displayed is highlighted in the TOC.

Index

Supports merging of multiple indexes. The underlying file format follows World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) standards. The index display is synchronized with the content viewer--the topic being displayed is highlighted in the index.

Full-Text Search

The flexible full-text search engine can be used in a variety of network environments. Matches returned from searches are ranked for relevancy using "relaxation rules."

Compression and Encapsulation

The standard JAR format is used to encapsulate the help information into a single, compressed file. The JavaHelp system works equally well with help information that is not compressed into JAR files--this flexibility allows authors to view files during development without taking the time to compress them.

Embeddable Help Windows

Help windows (individually or in combination) can be embedded directly into application interfaces.

Context-Sensitive Help

Help can be activated from within programs using a number of different mechanisms.

Flexible Packaging

Flexible packaging of help information for product delivery makes it easy to incrementally update help information in the field.

Customization

The JavaHelp system is designed to permit great flexibility in customizing both the user interface and functionality.

Merging

Help information from different sources can be combined and presented to the end user.

JavaBeans Support

The JavaHelp API permits a JavaBeans component to specify help information that can be presented to the end user (perhaps merged with additional information).