The Dreaded Help File (Dr. Explain to the Rescue)

A lot of software developers are very good at cutting code, setting up automated builds, managing version control, automated testing, etc. but when it comes to working with or preparing the documentation in general and the help file in particular there is much to be desired. My take on this is that preparing the help file is tedious or difficult because it is usually prepared at the end of the development process. I think the help file should be prepared in almost a parallel path as the development process so much so that it should also be added to the files managed by a version control system.

With the end of the 30-day challenge in sight and products almost ready to go out the door statements like “still have to write the help file…” or “help file still needs to be written” are starting to get mentioned. I am also in the same boat but I think I found a very good application that can make the writing of the help file a breeze. I am talking about the product called Dr. Explain. What impressed me most about it is that it can parse a screenshot into its individual controls and automatically create callouts for each of them. See the image below:

I think in the preparation of help files the most dofficult part is the preparation of the images that you want to include since images can convey a lot of information faster compared to pure text. With the screenshot editor of Dr. Explain this task becomes very easy. You can remove some of the callouts if you feel you do not need them. Also, each of these callouts has a link in the help page where you can type the appropriate text.

The help file can be exported in a variety of formats e.g. CHM, HTML, and RTF. The generated HTML help can be customised to appear as part of your website. This means that you can have a link to the help file in your site. I haven’t really gone deep into it but I shall talk more about it when I have. I just wanted to tell my fellow 30-dayers about this product.