Help Index for customised fields/developments

Kaetchen

Hi All,

We have Navision 4.00 SP3 Client 5.0 SP1 installed and I would like to know how we can use the help index for non-standard fields?

Apparently the company notes are not longer supported, so what replacement has MS to offer instead?

Thanks,

canadian_bacon

MS have a download where you create help pages using HTML (I think). You should be able to find it on PartnerSource.

kine

There is no replacement from user point of view. Partners and users with good knowledge can extend existing HTML help.

Kaetchen

With existing HTML help you mean the "Navision Online Help Guide" from 3.7?
I know that you can link word documents to Navision in NAV2009, but I hoped that we can integrate customised fields to explain their purpose.

How does this get integrated in Add-ons?

kine

There is special tool for that. In general the pages are written in HTML with special tags and compiled into the resulting .chm files.

bhalpin

(I can't resist!)

Make sure whatever documentation you provide follows NAV standards:

- At leat 20% of the help screens must be comprised of nothing more than the phrase "No help is associated with this topic".

- At least 30% of the help pointers must point to the main help page "Welcome to Navision Online Help"

- Where help is provided, it should be composed as to provide excruciating detail - but no context, or 'big-picture' overview of the overall business function, or how to actually do something.

- Multi-language support for error-messages is important - but ensure that the error is completely opaque in all languages.

- *NEVER* explain what posting something actually means!

- Documentation provided in pdf format should be written for, and contain screen-shots from a NAV version at least one major version older than the target audience is running.

- All screen shots must be taken with the column titles compressed to the default one line, and the columns should be narrowed to the point there the title and most of the content data is obscured. Also, irrelevant and empty columns should predominate in the screen shots.

- All text provided in any format should be translated through Chinese, Urdu, Russian, and Dutch (in that order) and then finally translated back to the destination language. If the result is still marginally usefull, then it should be rotated through Klingon and back as well.

I'm sure there's more, but those seem to be the 'prime directives'!

Ok - you can all kill me now! :P

Bob

P.S. This is a joke, and I hope it is taken that way. With my background in support & documentation writing I applaud anyone who attempts to provide user-documentation. Yes, even NAV/MS. They do try after-all.

Kaetchen

I assume the sarcasm is aimed towards MS and not my attempt to make Navision look a bit more professional to our already frustrated users

bhalpin

Yes!

idiot

bhalpin wrote:

(I can't resist!)

Make sure whatever documentation you provide follows NAV standards:

- At leat 20% of the help screens must be comprised of nothing more than the phrase "No help is associated with this topic".

- At least 30% of the help pointers must point to the main help page "Welcome to Navision Online Help"

- Where help is provided, it should be composed as to provide excruciating detail - but no context, or 'big-picture' overview of the overall business function, or how to actually do something.

- Multi-language support for error-messages is important - but ensure that the error is completely opaque in all languages.

- *NEVER* explain what posting something actually means!

- Documentation provided in pdf format should be written for, and contain screen-shots from a NAV version at least one major version older than the target audience is running.

- All screen shots must be taken with the column titles compressed to the default one line, and the columns should be narrowed to the point there the title and most of the content data is obscured. Also, irrelevant and empty columns should predominate in the screen shots.

- All text provided in any format should be translated through Chinese, Urdu, Russian, and Dutch (in that order) and then finally translated back to the destination language. If the result is still marginally usefull, then it should be rotated through Klingon and back as well.

I'm sure there's more, but those seem to be the 'prime directives'!

Ok - you can all kill me now! :P

Bob

P.S. This is a joke, and I hope it is taken that way. With my background in support & documentation writing I applaud anyone who attempts to provide user-documentation. Yes, even NAV/MS. They do try after-all.

What percentage should be assigned for "The program uses this field internally."?

Can I borrow your Nav "documentation standards" for my documentation use?

kine

Yes, the system is terrible. But I can see shift in that in last version. And the little I know about future, it will be better. 8) The current system for extending the on-line help is hard to use in everyday usage to document each field etc.

Kaetchen

Does anybody still knows what IT stands for?

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIE... please advise MS next time you go to the Convergence...

kine

But it is about the technology, not about the information...