Re: Help with Apple Helpbooks
Re: Help with Apple Helpbooks
- Subject: Re: Help with Apple Helpbooks
- From: Bruce Cresanta <email@hidden>
- Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2011 15:38:36 -0700
Todd,
Please let me know how you do with Cheeseman's book. I have given up for the day. I had absolutely zero success. :(
Bruce
On Feb 23, 2011, at 10:07 AM, Todd Heberlein wrote:
>
> On Feb 23, 2011, at 4:37 AM, Bruce Cresanta wrote:
>
>> They may be no big deal, but the more I read and try the more confused I get.
>
> I spent most of yesterday on this myself, and I too found it very frustrating. Part of my confusion comes from the fact that "Apple Help Programming Guide" is a blending of old and new style Help architectures. All examples I found on the web were for the old style, not the new one. I have ordered Cheeseman's book (it arrives today), and I will post my approach later today or tomorrow.
>
> For what it is worth, here is what I found useful:
>
> (1) Look at examples from the Mail and Terminal applications. These apps are using the new style (whereas Safari uses the old style; stay away from that one).
>
> (2) You need to edit one Info.plist (the one for your application) and create a second Info.plist (the one inside your help bundle/folder). When reading any documentation, make sure you know which Info.plist they are referring to.
>
> (2b) In the application's Info.plist you need to identify the Help folder's name (key = "CFBundleHelpBookFolder") and the Help Book's name (key = "CFBundleHelpBookName").
>
> [Another potential source of confusion: if you use the "Property List Editor" to edit the Info.plists file, the key's are described with English names. For example, the CFHelpBookFolder key is listed as "Help Book directory name", and the CFBundleHelpBookName is listed as "Help Book identifier".]
>
> (2c) In your Help Book's Info.plist you need to add a number of things. For example, the bundle identifier (key = "CFBundleIdentifier"), and, by the way, the Help Book's Info.plist's CFBundleIdentifier and the application's Info.plist's CFBundleHelpBookName appear to need to be the same value. For example, in the Terminal.app, the value for these keys is "com.apple.Terminal.help".
>
> (3) From the Mail & Terminal application examples, it seems that we don't need (shouldn't use?) the "AppleTitle" meta tag in the front HTML page anymore (despite programming guide saying that it is mandatory).
>
> (4) I'm not sure whether we should have our help folder/bundle name end with ".help" or not. The Mail and Terminal applications did, but the Apple documentation seemed to indicate only Apple apps should do this.
>
>
>
> Hopefully I will have a clearer idea by later today. Good luck.
>
> Todd
>
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