I am a software engineer and I usually need to create help files for my software. Sometimes I need to create extra help files for my clients. This is not an easiest job and create a professional help files are very difficult if you have not a powerful and affordable tool. So create help files was a bothersome job for me until I caught sight of a great tool that can create help files. That is Shalom Help Maker which was published by Finn Ekberg Christiansen. With Shalom Help Maker I can create help files for my software simply and quickly. Do you have the same requirement as me Well then, don't need to look for here and there. Shalom Help Maker is just for you!

Shalom Help Maker (SHM) is an easy to use Windows help file editor that supports images, targets, popup windows, links to other pages, web pages and E-mail addresses, and has automatic updating of links when pages are rearranged/added/deleted, listing of unused bitmaps and popup pages, listing of links to the present page and a lot more. Unlike other help file creators Shalom Help Maker works like any ordinary editor and therefore has practically no learning curve. We don't have to know anything about help file making. Just start typing, insert pictures and write page headers. Hit F4 to see a preview of a page or F9 to compile the whole help file. Shalom Help Maker makes old-fashioned help files, not chm files (HTML based help files). It runs on all Windows versions, including XP. Everything needed to make help files is included in this download. Following are some key features and functions of Shalom Help Maker, including: FREE CHOICE OF COMPRESSION LEVEL - Level 0 lets us compile real fast (great while we're working on a project) and level 1 or 8 gives us optimum compression (use just before distributing the help file). All compression levels supported by the compiler are available. If we select a word before opening the "Insert jump to a target" window, the word will be inserted as the hotspot text and the target names will be searched for a target name that contains the word. So this is what we might see when opening the window. FORMATTING - Use the Project Options to choose font sizes and fore- and background colors for the entire help file. Apply bold, italic or underline formatting to selected text. Align text or pictures (left, center, right). A header or a paragraph can be framed. Just select the text and click the Box button. We can define 16 different (text) colors in each project. Select the text and click a color on the vertical toolbar. Or click a color and then add text in between the tags. Each project can have a different set of colors. The colors are saved in the shp (project) file. So when we load a project the colors on the toolbar will change to that project's colors. The color will be represented (as code in the editor) by a number (1..16) that will be substituted with the actual color when compiling. This means that we can change a certain color through the whole help project just by changing the color definition (right-click any color on the toolbar and change the color in the Text Color configuration window). PROJECT OPTIONS - Each project is saved with its own options (language, character set, colors, font size, font color, front page/no front page etc.). In this window we can also save our choices as default values for new projects. PROGRAM OPTIONS - In this window we can choose highlighting colors, editor font, editor background color, tab length, left margin, the size and position of the compiled help file and more. SNIPPETS REPOSITORY - Each of the 6 snippet buttons can be assigned a number of snippets (code and text fragments). Right-click any button to open the Snippets Configuration window, where we can add, move, copy and rename snippets. When we have used a snippet (by selecting it from the button menu) we can repeat it by pressing Ctrl+Shift+E. REARRANGING PAGES - The Page Organizer makes it easy to move pages. Click the buttons to move pages around or press Ctrl+Arrow Up/Ctrl+Arrow Down. We can even have selected pages sorted alphabetically. When we close the window all links and jumps in the project are automatically updated. If we delete a page Shalom Help Maker tells us if there are links on other pages that point to the page we are deleting. We can then cancel the deletion or ignore the warning. FINDING A PAGE - If we have a lot of pages in our project we can use the Page Jumper (hit Alt+End) or the Go To Page menu to quickly jump to a specific page. Or open the Page Organizer (hit F5) and double-click the page we want. FOR PROGRAMMERS - In the Header Editor we can have Shalom Help Maker generate help page constants for programming purposes (or we can enter them yourself). Using these help page constants we don't have to change the code when we move or add pages. Just copy the constants and paste them into your project (Delphi/C++/C/VB). Click a button to write the constants to disk or copy them to the clipboard. LANGUAGE SUPPORT - We can choose language and character set to make help files with non-western languages and characters. Right-to-left writing (used in Hebrew, Arabic etc.) isn't supported! IMAGES - Only bmp images are supported by Shalom Help Maker (not the rarely used dib or wmf). The Microsoft help compiler doesn't support the JPG format. GIF images can be used, but aren't explicitly supported by Shalom Help Maker (since tests show that BMP files are compressed more effectively than GIF files). Click the Insert Image button to insert an image in our project. The image can be copied to the project folder by clicking a button. HIGHLIGHTING - Formatting codes, comments, targets, image codes and URLs (web addresses) are highlighted (i.e. given a customizable font color and/or background color) in the editor. MULTIPLE UNDO/REDO - The editor supports multiple undo/redo levels and drag'n'drop of text. CONTENTS AND INDEX - On each page we can fill in a Keywords text box with page related keywords separated by semicolons. These keywords can be found in the index of the help file after compiling. The page headers (which we enter in the Header text box) will automatically be used as keywords also. We can organize the pages with the Page Organizer. The result will be visible in the Contents window of the compiled help file. If we need the headings in the Contents window to differ from the page headers, we can enter alternative headers in the Header Editor. CONTEXT ID - Each page has a context id (number). The front page (if any) has a customizable number (default is 9999). The first page is 1, the next 2 etc. These contents numbers can be used from within our programming environment to open the help file to a certain page (but we should use the page name constants from the Header Editor). HANDY CONTEXT MENU - Right-click the editor window to display the context menu. If we left-clicked a topic ID and then right-clicked, we can jump directly to that topic/page (SHM will select the topic ID).

In addition, Shalom Help Maker is free for us and it does not contain any adware or spyware. It is a standalone software and does not need any extra software and hardware requirement. It works with most recent variants of Windows and its current version is 0.6.1 beta. With all these features, simple interface, excellent usability and free trial - why are you still reading Download the free trial now and experience what powerful and effective it is at once! If you feel this utility is helpful indeed, introduce it to your friends please!

Shalom Help Maker 0.6.1 beta is a Word Processing product from danish-shareware.dk, get 4 Stars SoftSea Rating, Shalom Help Maker (SHM) is an easy-to-use Windows help file editor that supports images, targets, popup windows, links to other pages, web pages and E-mail addresses, and has automatic updating of links when pages are rearranged/added/deleted, listing of unused bitmaps and popup pages, listing of links to the present page and a lot more. Unlike other help file creators Shalom Help Maker works like any ordinary editor and therefore has practically no learning curve. You don t have to know anything about help file making. Just start typing, insert pictures and write page headers. Hit F4 to see a preview of a page or F9 to compile the whole help file. Everything needed to make help files is included in this download. The license of this office software is Freeware, you can free download and free use this Office software.