Our help system already has a Contents pane that allows users to see the structure of the system and navigate it. It also has a Search pane that can locate topics that contains certain terms.
The next step in enhancing help navigation is the addition of hyperlinks, allowing users to click on certain parts of the document and automatically jump to other topics or show additional information.
There are several types of hyperlink mechanisms in help systems. All links are defined by special styles which are contained in Doc-to-Help style sheets and are automatically available in your source documents.
You can create links using Doc-To-Help Markup Language (D2HML). Doc-To-Help provides the D2HML Styles toolbar and dialog boxes that integrate with FrontPage, Dreamweaver and Microsoft Word.
To create links, all you have to do is select the text, click a button in the D2HML Styles toolbar, and make a few choices in a dialog box.
After you have added a link, the changes are visible in the source HTML, so you can see exactly how it is done, edit the HTML markup, or create your own links without using the toolbar at all if you prefer.
The image below shows the Doc-to-Help D2HML Styles toolbar as it appears in FrontPage:
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Topic Links