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What is a Dynamic Help System?

A dynamic help system is a centralized help system that runs on an internal web server or on your website. A dynamic help system is made up of server based .ASPX pages and requires Microsoft IIS and .NET Framework to be installed on the web server. A dynamic help system cannot be run from your harddrive, on a network, or from a CD. Software developers normally host the dynamic help system on their website and include help links from their software directly to pages within the help system.


Advantages:

• Create new help systems on the fly
• Track page views and 'most popular pages'
• If hosted on the Internet, authors can access from anywhere
• Authors can quickly make updates or add content
• Can integrate with other web-based applications
• Dynamically specify the skin in the URL
• Dynamically display conditional content

Disadvantages:

• Does not run on non-IIS web servers
• Cannot be distributed on a CD or within a setup file
• Slightly slower than static help systems

When to Publish a dynamic help system?

• If you want to be able to quickly update your help system
• If your help system will be hosted on your website
• If your help system will be hosted on an internal web server
• If your authors are located at separate office locations
• If you want to centrallize your company's help documentation

A dynamic help system will look exactly the same as a static help system published from the same project. The main difference is that the dynamic help system can be modified on the fly, whereas a Static help system must be re-published whenever changes are made.