HelpIndex Possible Improvements
Last modified: 19 February 1997.
What improvements do you want? Do you have any other suggestions?
PS See the MakeHelpIndex possible improvements
and the Index file format possible improvements.
DOING
POSSIBLE IMPROVEMENTS
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Support Marimba Castanet technology.
This would load the applet into your local computer memory,
making it much quicker to run.
Version updates would be applied automatically.
Note that the Java's usual security benefits would still apply.
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Add user authentication to MakeHelpIndex and/or HelpIndex,
ie so that they avoid the user having to fill in username/password boxes.
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Alter HelpIndex so that it can read the Contents (.hhc) and Index (.hhk) files
which are used by Microsoft's HTML Help ActiveX Control.
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Have an alternative view of the index form.
Still have a query text box, but have a hierarchy tree underneath,
listing all indices in alphabetical order, off root nodes A, B, etc.
So off J there would be children Java, Java applet etc.
From each child would be a list of the URLs that contain the Java, etc.
Typing in the query text box would take you to the appropriate entry.
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Write HelpIndex as an ActiveX control.
This should make it look slightly prettier
but will only run under Windows.
Similarly, write MakeHelpIndex as a standard Windows program.
Both should run faster than their Java counterparts.
Alternatively if the Java HelpIndex detects that it is running under Windows
then it makes native calls to do prettier trees, etc.
No - Java security should make this impossible.
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Have a border round the icon.
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Have tool-tips on buttons.
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In "applet" mode, change the "About" button into a "Window" button,
ie which shows the floating window.
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Write a version of javadoc to generate help index file properly.
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Allow wild card searches, eg *key or key?.
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Suggestion: have a server process which runs MakeHelpIndex daily
- or on demand - to ensure that your help index file is up to date.
In the future, perhaps servlets will allow this to be done automatically.
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Currently the index file is not sorted,
so HelpIndex does the sorting when the file is read.
If an index file is pre-sorted then it should be marginally quicker to load.
Perhaps use a different format code for sorted index files.
Provide a sorting program.
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Provide a programmer interface, eg so that another applet can
specify the query text, actually look it up and go to that URL.
- Do not use the GIF format as you are supposed to license it (from Unisys?).
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Is there any way of determining automatically what language a user is using
and switch automatically to that language? NO.
This will be only superficially useful, as indices will still be displayed in the
language of the HTML pages.
Eventually have a multi-lingual index file for multi-lingual pages.
MakeHelpIndex will need to recognise language of page (how is that specified?).
DONE
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DONE IN V2.0.
HelpIndex has a Contents tree to navigate the URLs of a site.
Have a summary site map at the bottom of each web page.
TO DO:Have a wizard to show the desired hierarchy,
ie the hierarchy is not just set by the first link found.
Keep the desired hierarchy in another file,
so that user's selections are not lost between HTML edits.
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DONE IN V2.0.
Allow other index files to be opened in Select tab.
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DONE IN V2.0.
A tiny "stub" HelpIndex gets loaded quickly to display the icon
as soon as possible while the main classes load.
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DONE IN V1.7. Have a parameter indicating the language of the prompts.
HelpIndex
PHD