Extending Flash Help Panel Content

The Help panel contains a set of books, listed in the Table of Contents pane. A book consists of a set of HTML and XML files, which determine the content, order, and structure of the book.

Each page in a book is represented by an HTML file, which makes authoring Help panel content familiar and straightforward. Pages can contain any content that is viewable in a browser—text, hyperlinks, images, tables, Flash content, and so on. You can create customized content, or link to the Help panel style sheets to create content in the format of the Flash documentation.

A Help panel book contains the following basic files:

help_toc.xml A required file that determines the structure and order of the book in the TOC.

help_search_index.xml An optional file that contains the searchable text for the book.

*.html A required file. A book can contain any number of HTML files, which comprise the content of the book.

Help panel directory structure

The HelpPanel directory contains three main subdirectories:

_sharedassets contains style sheets, JavaScript code, previous/next buttons, and other assets shared by all of the books.

Help contains the books that appear on the Help tab. Help tab books typically contain general help information and reference materials.

HowDoI contains the books that appear on the How Do I tab. How Do I books typically contain tutorials, lessons, and training materials.

Each book in the Help panel has a unique directory at the root level of either the Help or HowDoI directories. The directory structure of the Help panel might look something like this:

HelpPanel/
  _sharedassets/
    asset files...
  Help/
    myHelpBook/
      html files...
      help_toc.xml
      help_search_index.xml
  HowDoI/
    myHowDoIBook/
      ...

Context-sensitive links

The Actions panel links easily to Help panel content, so that users can instantly retrieve reference information for an item in the Actions panel toolbox or Script pane.

For items in a custom actions XML file, use the helpurl attribute to create a context-sensitive link. The value of the helpurl attribute should be the URL of an html page in a Help panel book, relative to the root level of the HelpPanel directory.

For example:

<action name="myAction" helpurl="Help/myBookDirectory/myHelpPage.html" .../>

or

<action name="myAction" helpurl="HowDoI/myBookDirectory/myHelpPage.html" .../>

Page 2 of 7