Want 'Search Help Topics' widget on home page of webstie

[vancouver.tech.writer]

Hi, I use Zoom indirectly in my webhelp output that Help&Manual creates. You must be familiar with that product as your user guide format looks suspiciously like default H&M PDF output!

Zoom is integrated by H&M into their webhelp output and I never see it or think about it but I know it's what's used on the Search tab of my webhelp output.

I would like to 'steal' that Search text box from webhelp and place it on our client website, so that users could search for help topics right from the home page, and without having to open the webhelp and clicking the Search tab.

Can you give me some discussion on this matter? Thanks!

[Ray]

Yes, we work with the Help&Manual team and there is a custom version of Zoom that is integrated into their Help&Manual product to provide the search function in your web help.

The stand alone version of Zoom (from wrensoft.com) is more flexible and can be used to index any website, and not just your H&M Web Help project.

I assume your client website is at least slightly, if not very, different to the web help (and not just an uploaded copy of the web help -- otherwise the existing search feature should work, albeit not ideal).

Where would you expect the search results on the client website to be pointing to? It can't point to the actual web help (an online site can't link to a page on your hard drive). It would have to point to pages on the website itself.

The most flexible solution, one would imagine, is to acquire the stand-alone full version of Zoom to index your client website.

So you may have to explain further how your client website is related to your web help, or what you're hoping for.

[vancouver.tech.writer]

Hi Ray! Thanks for your reply. The website is a DNN (DotNetNuke CMS) website, so I have have to use the DNN File Manager module to manage files, I don't have access to every file and folder. I upload my generated webhelp to a folder on the website. I can then display it by calling the 'index.html' URL (webhelp opens by itself/just the tri-pane webhelp interface) or I can call 'index.html' within an iFrame (webhelp displays within my websites menu/layout).

In either case, you click over to the Search tab in the webhelp and can search for help topics.

The Search tab in webhelp is an html.page. I experimented and placed the Search tab's HTML into an iFrame on a website page. It works fine: you can search for a help topic and it returns results within that frame.

But I was hoping to just have the search box and have results display on a separate page. The search box for the DNN website is just the search box on every page... if you type a search term, the results display on another page. I was hoping to have a second box that would do the same but only for help topics.

The DNN search box doesn't seem to return any results associated with webhelp pages because they aren't actual web pages created in DNN. I'm not sure how to tweak the DNN search box.

Are you saying that the Zoom search box WOULD index and return results for my webhelp?

I hope I'm not being confusing. Thanks!