What's New in jHelp

Version 2.08r4 - December 7, 1997

This section describes new features and enhancements introduced in jHelp 2.08r4

Changes from 2.08r3

Version 2.08r4 is a maintenance release. A correction to htmlHelpIndexBuilder to fix a bug that prevented it from reading an input-list file. Several of jHelp's inner classes have been restructured as anonymous to eliminate very long file names (MacOS apparently suffers from a 31 character limit.) Modifications were made to perform special character conversions in document titles as well as attribute values in HTML tags. Finally, a number of additional special character codes have been added in support of Western European languages.

AWT Lists were broken in JDK 1.1.4 (very slow) and this appears to still be the case with JDK 1.1.5. JDK 1.1.5 has also changed the URL returned from Class.getResource(), rendering jHelp.htmlLocator unusable with Java 1.1.5. This new issue has been reported to JavaSoft. Finally, we are recommending that developers do not deploy jHelp's printing features with shipping products. JavaSoft reports they are disabling printing in the Windows versions of HotJava due to rendering and stability issues until Java's printing methods are fixed. jHelp.htmlHelpFrame.setPrintButtonVisible(boolean) provides a method for hiding the Print button.

Changes from 2.08r2

Version 2.08r3 is a maintenance release. A bug involving http connections from standalone apps, pertaining to constructing URL's from the base URL of a document has been corrected. A stray hard-coded "OK" button caption has been corrected in message boxes. The moondog.dialogs MessageBox's used in the index Wizard tool have been revised for proper operation on SPARC/Solaris platforms. Finally, when using the standalone console application, htmlHelpIndexBuilder, the document list may be omitted, in which case the index builder will use all htm/html documents in the current directory (or directory specified with the -d switch) and recurse into subdirectories thereof, as well.

Changes from 2.07

• The index, search and query panels of htmlHelpIndexFrame are now public, to facilitate building custom help windows.
• The document cache now defaults to 10 documents, rather than all documents.
• Font sizing has been adjusted to eliminate display of very small text using HTML sizing values.

Other enhancements and new features described below are from jHelp 2.07

Features

• Applets can now access documents packed into the applet's distribution archive (jar or zip.)
• Applications can now access documents packed into the application's jar or zip, and determine the location of the jar on the user's system programmatically using methods in the new jHelp class, htmlLocator.
• jHelp's indexing capabilities have been greatly expanded, to include global word and phrase searching. A revised htmlHelpIndexFrame optionally implements a tabbed-folders style user interface to access the new functionality.
• Improved use of system resources.(2.08r2)
• Improved handling of empty HTML anchor tags, as generated by some third-party indexing programs.(2.08r2)
• A few stray deprecated methods have been corrected.(2.08r2)

Index Wizard

• A project-oriented Index Builder Wizard is now provided, which acts as a very friendly front-end to the htmlIndexBuilder console application of the previous version. The wizard lets you save index builds as projects that you can reopen and edit, and easily run as needed to update an app's index file. (The console application is still available for those who prefer it over the wizard.)
• The index builder will optionally compile the global word list for use in the new search and query functions.
• The index wizard implements its own resource bundle to facilitate NLS. The word list generator also implements a resource bundle to permit customizing the word exclusion list.

New Tags

• Extended index and keyword tags (backward compatible with version 2.06 at the HTML level) permit creating index sub-levels.
• The <UNDERLINE OFF> and <UNDERLINE ON> tags permit toggling hyperlink underlining on or off.
• The <S> and </S> tags permit displaying "strikethrough" text.

Bug Fixes

• A minor bug in the back/forward navigation stack has been corrected.(2.08r2)
• An obscure (and aggravating) bug  involving index building has been corrected.

New Examples

• Applet and application examples have been reworked to better demonstrate deployment of jHelp as a help system.

Revised Documentation

• Documentation has been expanded to provide detailed information concerning use of jHelp's newest batch of features.