Skip to main content

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index] [List Home]
Re: [platform-help-dev] Launching infocenter to a particular URL

Steve,

1) and 2) We have just (in 2.1 stream) enabled bookmarking a topic in the
Infocenter scenario employing browser's bookmarking features.  Bookmarking
a topic in a browser will create bookmark pointing to:
http://doc_server.ibm.com:8080/help/content/help:/com.ibm.myplugin.doc/installing.html
.  The topic, when opened, runs Javactipts, that detects if topic is opened
without frames and redirects the browser to the URL of the frameset when
this topic is displayed in the context of other frames:
http://server:8080/help?topic=/pluginId/path_to_file.html,

3) For workbench and stand-alone scenarios, we are working to implement
different approach that will save bookmark to a topic in a workbench and
display bookmarks view (with a tab) for using a bookmark.  We have not get
to the point where the bookmark is exposed such that it can be
copied/e-mailed/pasted.

Your proposed Solution 1 (Infocenter)

The URL of the frameset and the particular topic have to be different,
hence the URL of the topic cannot point to the frameset.  I see no solution
to cheat the browser and cause it to display a different URL than the one
topic is coming from.  Anyway, I believe the bookmark implementation that
was implemented achieves the same goal.

Your proposed Solution 2 (Workbench and Stand-alone)

HTML parser that we currently use does not extract contents of meta tags,
but a product can implement and use this solution.  To have an invisible
content, one must literally add an invisible content to the document.  So
have a section somewhere in the body of the document that is made invisible
in the browser (for  example style display:none).  Help HTML parser will
extracts words from this part of a document and index as it were part of
the normal text.  You can then use search engine to find a document with
these keywords.
At some point we should replace the current parser with a smarter one that
can extracts meta tags and still be fast.  In the mean time we are stuck
with this one, but the invisible text workaround should work.

Konrad Kolosowski
Eclipse Help System



                                                                                                                                              
                      Steve                                                                                                                   
                      Woolley/UK/IBM@IBMGB            To:       platform-help-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx                                                 
                      Sent by:                        cc:                                                                                     
                      platform-help-dev-admin@        Subject:  Re: [platform-help-dev] Launching infocenter to a particular URL              
                      eclipse.org                                                                                                             
                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                              
                      08/20/2002 04:19 AM                                                                                                     
                      Please respond to                                                                                                       
                      platform-help-dev                                                                                                       
                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                              




Dorian et al,

Our service teams have a requirement to e-mail a URL/describe a unique ID -
that points to a particular topic in an information Web - to users of our
products.  There are a few problems with the solution you detailed in your
reply to Kari:

1)  It places a requirement on the service guy to know the ID of the doc
plug-in containing the topic they want to refer to (not so difficult to
overcome since right clicking and choosing "Properties" in IE gives you the
fully qualified URL, plug-in ID, path, and filename of the target topic).

2)  It requires the service guy to remember the correct syntax (
http://server:8080/help?topic=/pluginId/path_to_file.html) for getting to
that topic (which is not the most intuitive of URLs to remember).

3)  The method of calling a topic via a URL will only work in an
information center scenario - what about integrated/standalone help
scenarios?


I would like to propose two solutions to these problems (one for the
information center scenario, and one for the integrated/standalone help
scenario).


Solution 1 - Information Center Scenario
=================================

Currently, when you right click on a topic in Internet Explorer, the
Address (URL) field of the General Properties dialog displays:

http://doc_server.ibm.com:8080/help/content/help:/com.ibm.myplugin.doc/installing.html


Which - as Kari pointed out - only displays that topic (without any
navigation, searchbar, or toolbar) if you copy and paste it into your
browser.

It would be great if the Address (URL) field of the General Properties
dialog (when you right-click on the topic in IE) contained the correct
syntax for getting to the target topic (including the other frames), for
example:

http://doc_server.ibm.com:8080/help?topic=/com.ibm.myplugin.doc/installing.html


Do you have any control over the information that gets populated in the
Address (URL)  field?

If the Web client is running on a UNIX platform, the user would choose
"View Frame Info" after right-clicking on the topic in question, and copy
the URL of the topic from the "Location" field in Netscape.

The only limitation I see with this solution is that the service guy would
have to copy and paste the topic location from an **externally** visible
application server for the customer to get any benefit out of the link.


Solution 2 - Integrated/Standalone Help Scenario
===============================================

Earlier this month, Jeanette Deupree asked about adding meta information,
or other tagging, to an HTML file to add alternative keywords to a topic:

"Is there any way to add meta information or other tagging to an HTML file
to add alternative search keywords to a topic? There are several ways to
refer to one concept in our product and we want to be able to put
alternative search keywords in a file without them showing up in the text."

Our team also investigated this possibility with a view to assigning a
unique - but invisible - topic ID as meta information to every topic in our
Web.  The idea being that users could be given the topic ID by our service
guys, the user searches for the unique topic ID, and hey presto, the topic
they were looking for appears at the top of their search results with 100%
score.

It would be nice if we could contain this kind of information invisibly in
our topics.


I look forward to hearing your thoughts on these two solutions.

Best wishes,


Steve
_______________________________________________________________________________



Stephen Woolley - User Assistance Architect
WebSphere MQ Integrator User Technologies
Mail Point 095, IBM United Kingdom Laboratories, Hursley Park,
Winchester, Hampshire, SO21 2JN, United Kingdom
Steve Woolley/UK/IBM@IBMGB             swoolley@xxxxxxxxxx
Tel/Fax:  +44 (0)1962 818428                   Internal:  248428


Yes, but things could change, so don't count on this as being an "API".

http://server:8080/help?topic=/pluginId/path_to_file.html

-Dorian


Hi. I figured out how to open an infocenter to a particular topic (with
http://<server>:8080/help/content/help:/<path>/<file>.html), but what comes
up is just the topic itself, no navigation or search or any of the other
frames. Is there a special kind of URL you can call to get a specific topic
PLUS the other useful frames?

Kari.

_______________________________________________
platform-help-dev mailing list
platform-help-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx
http://dev.eclipse.org/mailman/listinfo/platform-help-dev



_______________________________________________
platform-help-dev mailing list
platform-help-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx
http://dev.eclipse.org/mailman/listinfo/platform-help-dev





Back to the top