Consider using Snippets

When you are developing help for an application, it's quite common that the application isn't yet complete.

This poses a huge issue for the Help Author, because help development is occurring at the same time as the Application is being developed. The Help Author may have captured screens that are in an unfinished state. As the application completion nears, the Help Author needs to re-capture screen images.

While this in and of itself isn't overly difficult, it's a painstaking process to ensure that each topic using an image has been updated with the latest image. As long as the image dimensions haven't changed, it's not too bad to simply save the new image to the same location and using the same file name as the former image.

But what happens when the dimensions change?

This is where Snippets may help. If you create a snippet for each image, then insert the snippet into the topics where you would normally insert the images, you could save yourself a significant amount of time and energy. This is because you make the image change in a single place. After doing so, all topics that use the snippet are now accurate. There are no further guessing games with wondering which topics were using the image.

Step

Process

Actions

1

View the Snippet pod

Click View > Pods > Snippet

2

Create a new Snippet

Click File > New > Snippet

The document editing pad displays the new snippet.

3

Insert the image into the Snippet

Select all the snippet text in the document editing pad and replace it with the screen capture of the application.

4

Insert the snippet into topics

Edit the topic where the screen capture of the application should appear.

Click the Snippet and drag it from the Snippet pod to the topic.

Please examine the The_WidgetMax_Information_Screen.htm topic in the Screen_Level folder to see an example of how this technique was implemented.