Web help

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Web help is a type of online help delivered through the internet. A well-known example of such a system is MSDN. This approach, mixing internet and local resources, is also used in Windows XP's Help and Support feature.

1 File format
2 Advantages
3 Disadvantages
4 See also
5 External links

File format

Simple web help may consist of a series of web pages, while more sophisticated web help solutions feature a frameset sidebar that provides a table of contents and occasionally search capability, emulating local help resources such as HTML Help.

There are a number of tools that are used to make web help, like MadCap Software, RoboHelp, Macrobject Word-2-Web, Help & Manual, chm2web, or Help Explorer Server.

Advantages

The advantages of web help solutions are that they permit content to be continually updated and that they sometimes give prospective buyers a deeper preview of products. Web help can be considered as a cross-platform solution since it can be viewed using a regular internet browser, while local online help runs only on a help viewer, and often only on a specific platform.

Disadvantages

The main disadvantage of web help is that it is more cumbersome for the user than purpose-designed help applications, as it may become difficult or impossible to access depending on the user's internet connection. Also, it is difficult to effectively implement context-sensitive help with web help.