Omni Systems, Inc. Mif2Go User's Guide, Version 55
> 10 Generating OmniHelp > 10.1 Understanding how OmniHelp works
OmniHelp is an open-source, cross-platform Help system that displays help topics in a way similar to WebHelp or HTML Help. The OmniHelp viewer consists of a set of HTML (or XHTML) and JavaScript files that present the Help content in a tri-pane format, using any browser that meets the following criteria:
OmniHelp output generated from a FrameMaker document consists of the following:
The display is controlled by a small set (about 40K) of JavaScript files and CSS files.
Software developers are invited to contribute to the further development of OmniHelp. The OmniHelp project is officially hosted on SourceForge:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/omnihelp/
The OmniHelp Design Report describes how OmniHelp was designed and built. You can read it here:
Because OmniHelp is not a compiled Help system, you have access to the source code for the viewer, so you can alter its behavior and appearance beyond just the changes you can make by setting Mif2Go configuration parameters. However, to undertake major modifications, you must be conversant in JavaScript, CSS, and HTML 4.
Modifying OmniHelp JavaScript, CSS, or HTML files
in the viewer directory can lead to a maintenance problem: you have to
check your modified files against the corresponding files in each new
release, and merge the changes, which might not be trivial. If you change
any ohct*.css
, oh*.js
,
or oh*.htm
files, use a utility such as WinDiff
(free from Microsoft) to compare your files to the updated files. Check
each release for new variables that you can set in the configuration
file, to control features that formerly required edits to the JavaScript
files; see § New
information. Take advantage of any new settings
to minimize JavaScript changes.
OmniHelp is licensed under the LGPL (Library/Lesser General Public License), which permits its use in commercial products (without requiring those products to also be Open Source) as long as OmniHelp source code, including all modifications, is made available to users:
http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/lesser.html