***************************************** THE NETWORK HELP CENTRE ***************************************** The Network Help Centre is published by: A & S Sharpe 4 Drovers Way Peebles EH45 9BN Scotland Internet: 100614.3441@compuserve.com The Authors disclaim all warranties as to this software, whether express or implied, including without limitation any implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, functionality, data integrity or protection. ***************************************** V1.04 - Spring 1995 Packing list ------------ You should have received the following files: nhc.exe The Windows program nhc.ini Initialisation parameters file nhcread.me Data file for the 'about' screen manual.txt This document form.txt A form for registration of the s/w (thank you!) INTRODUCTION ------------ The Network Help Centre (NHC) is a Windows program designed to provide easy access for Network PC users to a range of text and Windows help-file resources. It includes the following features: * today's news * automated notification of changes to today's news * detailed news articles (most recent or complete) * frequently asked questions archive (including full text search) * notice board (automatic removal of old items) * user feedback (free text) * help guide (Windows help file format) * automatic highlighting of the most recent news, notices and FAQs. * administration option * compatible with ANY network operating system. The NHC is designed to be easy to maintain and easy to use: o No complex file structures are used for data files - just plain old ASCII. o No indexes are required - these are generated 'on the fly' from the data files. INSTALLATION ------------ 1. Copy all the enclosed files to a network directory: All users of the NHC should be given access to execute the NHC.exe program. E.g. on a netware system you would enter: grant r f for f:\local\nhc to everyone where f:\local\nhc was the installation directory. 2. Decide your directory/file structure: - the today's news file - the detailed news article files - the frequently asked questions files - the notice board files - the user feedback file A typical directory structure might be as follows (normal access rights are indicated as well): Today's news file f:\local\public\motd read only News articles f:\local\nhc\news read only FAQ files f:\local\nhc\faqs read only Notice board files f:\local\nhc\notices read, create User feedback file f:\local\nhc\fb\fb.txt read, modify, update Note: if you don't want users to submit their own notices then make the notice board directory read only as well. Update the NHC.INI file to reflect this structure. 3. Create a blank user feedback file. 4. Create a blank today's news file. 5. Install the NHC.exe program in your Windows (home directory should point to the location of the NHC.ini file). The NHC should now run. Certain timing parameters etc. can also be customised via NHC.INI - see later sections. The format of the various ASCII files used by NHC are described in the various sections below. TODAY'S NEWS ------------ The detailed news file is plain ASCII, in any format you please. Clicking on the Today's News icon will display the contents of the today's news file. If the file is too large to display at one time scroll bars can be used to scroll through the whole file. Click on Cancel when you have read enough. Tip: because the toady's news file is plain ASCII, you can display it easily when users first log in to your network. This means they have the chance to view it once at login, and subsequently at their leisure once Windows is running. Automated news update notification All the time the NHC is running, whether minimised or not, it will check periodically to see if the toady's news file has been updated. If it has, you will be told via a Windows message and the NHC will be brought to the front of your work for you to easily view the updated news file. On small networks the periodicity of checking may be decreased. On large networks you may wish to increase it. DETAILED NEWS ------------- The detailed news files are plain ASCII text files, all ending '.TXT' in the detailed news directory. The FIRST LINE of each text file MUST contain the subject of the news. This is where the NHC gets its titles from. The rest of the news file can be in any format you please. When you click on the detailed news icon, the NHC will search for the last 60 (default) days of news articles and sort them by last update date. It will then display them, one line at a time, showing the date they were updated and their subject (first) line. You then have the option to: o look at the full text of the news - double click on a title or - press the display full text button o view a list of ALL news articles o print the currently highlighted article BULLETIN BOARD -------------- Bulletin (or notice) board files are of exactly the same format as news files: plain ASCII text, filenames ending '.TXT', first line used for the subject. When you click on the Bulletin Board icon you will see a list of notices on the bulletin board, sorted by date of submission. When a notice gets older than 30 (default) days it will not be displayed. You then have the option to: o look at the full text of the notice - double click on a title or - press the display full text button o print the currently highlighted notice FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS -------------------------- FAQ files are of exactly the same format as news files: plain ASCII text, filenames ending '.TXT', first line used for the subject. When you click on the FAQ icon you will see a list of available FAQ files, sorted by SUBJECT. The date the FAQ was created is NOT shown. You then have the option to: o look at the full text of the FAQ - double click on a title or - press the display full text button o print the currently highlighted FAQ o search for a topic of interest - press the search button and enter a keyword or phrase(wildcards not currently available) - optionally scan the full text of the FAQs, rather than just their subject lines - re-enter a further search to narrow the selection further. USER FEEDBACK ------------- The user feedback file is a plain ASCII file of variable format, to which ordinary users can only add comments and not view/modify. If you are an administrator you can view, print and update the file. When you click on the User Feedback icon you will see a text box in to which any comments can be entered. Feedback can be cleared using the Clear button and when complete can be 'submitted' to the network administrators. When text is submitted it is stamped with the time and the full name of the user submitting the comment, however only the administrator can see this detail. Typically the administrator should review this comments file periodically and remove old comments, clearing them as appropriate. NETWORK HELP ------------ Clicking on this icon invokes a specified Windows help file. This might contain more specific help and support information. If you do not have the ability to generate Windows help files (you need the help compiler supplied with Visual Basic and the ability to generate RTF files, e.g. using Microsoft Word for windows), you may specify no file in the NHC.INI settings. NHC.INI PARAMETER SETTINGS ========================== Shown below is the default NHC.INI file. Please feel free to experiment with different settings as you see fit. The comments within the file should make the meaning of each parameter self explanatory: 'Network Help Centre 'Initialisation values ' 'Environment variables used are: ' FULLNAME - set during system login ' NHCADMIN - set to YES or not present/NO ' 'You will need to edit the various file names and paths shown below 'to fit your local installation. [Files] HELPFILE=snug.hlp FEEDBACKFILE=i:\news\comments\comments.txt TODAYFILE=f:\local\public\motd [Directories] NOTICEDIR=i:\news\notices HELPDIR=i:\news FAQDIR=i:\news\faq [Timings] 'Days to look back for the initial detailed news list NEWSPERIOD=60 'Days to keep notices on the noticeboard NOTICEPERIOD=30 'Days to tell users new entries in noticeboard 'at program startup NOTICECHECK=7 'Minutes between scans for new news SCANPERIOD=5 [DISPLAY] ;Display a startup status form and minimize the main program ;(this is removed by the user by passing the mouse over it) FIRSTFORM=Yes [Information] SUPPORTNUMBER=x4222 The environment variables should be set when the user logs in to your network. Typically only the network administrator would set the NHSADMIN flag. Note that although potentially ANYONE can set the NHSADMIN flag, your operating system directory permissions should still restrict users to the facilities they are allowed. In particular, they should still not be able to modify the user feedback file once comments have been submitted. SHAREWARE ========= This software is shareware not freeware. Initially you should receive it in a restricted version. You will not be able to display more than 5 news, FAQ or notice board files. Please complete the form shown in the file form.txt and send this to us for a registered (entirely unlimited) version. The registration cost is small and will entitle you to 3 months support by e-mail. Our E-mail address is shown at the beginning of this manual document. OTHER PRODUCTS -------------- We have a range of network-oriented products now in use around the world. Our most popular items are: * an electronic questionnaire manager for automated collection and analysis of guided feedback * netware accounting analysis system for detailed/meaningful analysis of netware server accounting stats. Please let us know if you would like evaluation copies of either item, or consult your shareware library. ***************************************** THE NETWORK HELP CENTRE ***************************************** The Network Help Centre is published by: A & S Sharpe 4 Drovers Way Peebles EH45 9BN Scotland Internet: 100614.3441@compuserve.com