RichHelpTip

Tool for ASP.NET that allows developers to add in-page help for end-users.
RichHelpTip is a professional online help tool for ASP.NET that allows developers to easily add in-page help for end-users. The end user just sees a button or link marked "Help" or "?" and they can click it to see pop-up help that explains a form element.

RichHelpTip - Features

New features in version 2.1

RichHelpTip is a professional online help tool for ASP.NET that allows developers to easily add in-page help for end-users. The end user just sees a button or link marked "Help" or "?" and they can click it to see pop-up help that explains a form element.

Professional End-User Features

• Instant pop-up help Display context sensitive help on web forms, right where they're needed using RichHelpTip
• Opening behavior Specify how each RichHelpTip opens - with a click on a Help button, with a click on the related form element (e.g. a TextBox), or by pressing the F1 key
• Styling, size and colors Every aspect of the help tip, from the typeface, to the background color, to the size can be set using a broad range of properties
• Place anywhere Help tips can be placed anywhere on the page, and work much like validation controls. Just place it on the page, and hook it up to the control to which it relates
• Formatted, rich online help RichHelpTip fully supports help tips that contain formatted text and images
• Related links Each RichHelpTip can be configured to display a series of related links to which the user can refer if they need more assistance or information
• Context-sensitive RichHelpTip is not designed to provide a single help button for each page, it is designed to provide help for each form element. This is true, fine-grained context sensitive help

Highly Usable User Interface

• Rapid help display Help tips are displayed without the need to load anything from the server
• Always on top The ability to prevent other web form elements from appearing over the opened help tip. RichHelpTip provides three levels of browser support
• Keyboard integration Help tips can be opened using the F1 key whilst focus is on a form field
• Auto-resizing Help tips automatically resize vertically to fit the text they contain, making efficient use of space
• Scrolling control User can specify whether to allow scrolling on help tips or not
• Feedback RichHelpTip not only offers a simple way to make applications easier to use, it also completes the feedback loop by making it easy to collect user ratings of your documentation. Each help tip can optionally contain a question - "Did this help? Yes / No". User can collect this data and report on it

Full Design-time Support

• Easy to configure using point-and-click RichHelpTip fully supports Visual Studio .NET design-time features and provides the ability to configure the RichHelpTip using the property sheet, avoiding the need to write extensive customization code
• Drag-and-drop RichHelpTip supports the Visual Studio .NET ability to simply drag and drop a RichHelpTip onto your web form, saving time writing code and remembering tag names
• Support for Visual Studio .NET, Visual Studio .NET 2003, and Web Matrix RichHelpTip works with all Microsoft developer tools both using source code editing, and design-time visual development, and can even be used with Notepad or any other source code editor

Simple installation and implementation

• Easy installation Single-file installation (.DLL), combined with one-click installable samples
• Fully customisable appearance Every aspect of the help tip, from the typeface, to the background color, to the size can be set using a broad range of properties.
• Centrally managed help tip content Help tips can be loaded from anywhere, but by default are loaded from a helptips.xml file. This simple XML file can be edited by hand, or using the editor provided. Developers can split help content into multiple files for localization, and by web folder, making it simple to delegate creation of the help tip content

Complete Visual Customization

• Configurable orientation Specify where the picker appears in relation to the button or link that opens it
• Customizable look and feel The ability to specify how the help tip is opened (button, text, or image)
• Central configuration The RichHelpTip configuration file, richhelptip.xml, can be used to centrally configure the look and behavior of help tips in the web application. Users can even place a richhelptip.config file in a sub-folder and override the settings for a part of your application (just like web.config).
• External style sheet support RichHelpTip fully supports the use of an external style sheet to specify the colors and styles used to render your help tips

Fully Culture and Locale Sensitive

• Supports multiple languages Help tip content can be stored in multiple languages
• Automatic language selection RichHelpTip automatically selects the most appropriate content, for example it can use the browser's language setting to select the most appropriate language from those available
• Content and code separate By default, all help tip content is completely separate from all HTML and code. This makes it easy to delegate its responsibility, and means those that write help content do not need to be skilled ASP.NET developers

Extensive Developer Features

• Built for ASP. NET RichHelpTip is designed from the ground up in Microsoft Visual C# for the ASP.NET platform. Its built by ASP.NET experts, and suitable for anyone working with ASP.NET whether they are new to web development, or a long-time guru
• Validation support RichHelpTip works right alongside the standard ASP.NET validation controls
• Rapid page downloads RichHelpTip implements a compact client-side page weight. Core client-side code is shared between instances on the same page
• Fully data-aware RichHelpTip supports data binding, for example in editable DataGrids, and DataLists
• Global Assembly Cache ready RichHelpTip is provided as a strong named (signed) assembly and is ready for use in a shared environment in the Global Assembly Cache (for example in a multiple web site or shared hosting environment)
• ASP.NET SmartNavigation RichHelpTip functions correctly with Microsoft ASP.NETs in-built SmartNavigation feature so pages containing a RichHelpTip will re-open in the same place after a post-back
• Support for user controls RichHelpTip functions fully from within a user control, as well as an ASP.NET page, making it easy to reuse

New features in version 2.1 include:

• HelpTip pop-up display issue: When placing RichHelpTip in DataGrid, HelpTip pop-up did not display correctly. This issue has been resolved.

New features in previous edition 1.2 include:

• XmlFileUrl property This new property allows explicit specification of the location and name of the XML file that contains the help tip content. Setting this property overrides the auto-searching facility that looks for helptips.xml in the current folder, the root folder and all folders in between
• ConfigFileUrl property This new property specifies the location and name of the RichHelpTip configuration file. Setting this property overrides the auto-searching facility that looks for RichHelpTip.config in the current folder, the root folder and all the folders in between
• Display modes Provides support for automatically displaying the pop-up help tip when the users mouse pointer rolls over the RichHelpTip display icon. A new property - DisplayEvent is exposed that may be set to onclick or onmouseover
• Special Character support The helptips.xml file now support the ~ character in URLs, as a shortcut for the current application path. This is now consistent with the ASP.Net Url support model
• CausesValidation support The CausesValidation property is now fully supported for consistency of behaviour with other controls. The default setting is false meaning that the RichHelpTip won't cause page validation to be fired unless specified by the page developer
• ID issue The ID in each help tip was restricted in its form. This issue has now been fixed, and any ID can be assigned using the RichHelpTip editor
• Firefox scrolling issue Under some circumstances scrolling caused some issues with the Firefox browser. This issue has been addressed
• Localization issue Under some rare circumstances (where the browser had no language specified) RichHelpTip could throw a server-side exception. This issue has now been resolved
• ASP.Net Validation controls issue Some strange interactions with the ASP.NET validation controls have been discovered and resolved
• Horizontal scroll issue The Close button wouldn't move with the horizontal scroll event this issue has been resolved
• Default styles The default styles rendered in creation of the help tip from the helptips.xml file have changed.

RichHelpTip - System Requirements

Richer Components RichHelpTip supports the following browsers:

• Internet Explorer 5.0 and above
• Netscape 6.0 and above
• Opera 6.0 and above.
• Firefox v1.0 and above
• Macintosh Safari
• Mozilla
• Konqueror