This document describes the steps that must be followed to run the jHelp demonstration application, DemoApp.
The only requirement for running the demonstration application is the presence of a Java runtime, JavaSoft version 1.1.3 preferred (although jHelp will run under 1.1.1 and 1.1.2 runtimes.) The runtime should be configured properly for your system, per the documentation that comes with it.
jHelp 2.0 will not run under a Java 1.02 runtime.
When you unpacked the jHelp distribution zip onto your hard disk, it placed the jHelp package jar (jhelp.jar) in a subdirectory of your installation directory named "lib."
Running DemoApp requires that the jHelp package jar be named in the Java Classpath. How this is done is system dependent, although it is fairly similar across platforms. On a DOS-based platform it may be accomplished with a batch or command-line instruction such as:
set CLASSPATH=%CLASSPATH%;d:\YourDirectory\lib\jhelp.jar
assuming that you have installed the jHelp distribution zip into to a folder named d:\YourDirectory.
If you already have a previous version of jHelp in your Classpath, then you should remove it before adding this newer version.
If you are unsure how to place jhelp.jar in your Java Classpath, you should ask someone who is familiar with this to do it for you on your system
After you have placed jhelp.jar in your Classpath, log into your installation directory, and then into the examples/demoapp subdirectory. This directory should contain the file DemoApp.class, among others.
At the system prompt, enter the command
java DemoApp
The above assumes that the Java runtime executable (java.exe on Windows platforms) is in the executable path. Again, if you are not sure how to set up your Java runtime to run Java applications, you should ask someone who is familiar with the process to show you how to do this.
If your system is properly configured, and you have successfully placed jHelp in your Classpath, you should see the demo application appear on your monitor, looking similar to the figure below:
The demo application doesn't do anything significant, other than give you an idea of the capabilities of jHelp.
If you've successfully started the application, further instructions for running it are available in Running the Demonstration Application.
The HTML documents used in the demo application are contained in help.jar. Extract the jar to examine the documents.