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About Advanced Server Features in WebHelp Plus

WebHelp Plus is identical to the regular WebHelp output in most ways. However, WebHelp Plus is designed to work on a Web server running Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008, Windows 7, or Windows Vista. It also uses Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) and ASP.NET. To provide faster search, WebHelp Plus uses Microsoft Indexing Service (for Windows XP and Windows Server 2003) or Windows Search (for Windows Server 2008). The benefit of publishing WebHelp Plus output is that you and your users can take advantage of some advanced features, including searching of non-XHTML content, faster server-side search, and automatic runtime merging.

Searching of non-XHTML content When end users perform a search in your online output, you can ensure that non-XHTML files (e.g. PDF, DOC, XLS) are included in that search.When you build WebHelp Plus output, a subfolder named "AutoSearch" is created and placed in the generated output folder. You can place non-XHTML files within the published AutoSearch subfolder (whether the non-XHTML files are linked to content from your Flare project or not). When users perform a search in your output, those non-XHTML files will also be scanned and become accessible to the users. See Including Non-XHTML Files in Search.
Faster searching Another benefit of generating and publishing WebHelp Plus output to a Web server running Microsoft IIS is that users will find the task of performing a search to be much faster than it is otherwise. This is especially useful if you have a very large Help system.
Automatic runtime merging of Flare projects This is an easy way to merge the output from multiple WebHelp Plus Flare targets into one Help system. These targets can be originated from the same Flare project or from different Flare projects. You simply place the output files in the correct location on the server (i.e., within your master project's AutoMerge folder). Flare then automatically merges the output from all of the targets when users access the Help. From the end user's perspective, the results are seamless, appearing as one large Help system. All of the TOCs, browse sequences, indexes, glossaries, and search capabilities for the projects are merged. See Merging Output at Runtime Using WebHelp Plus.

Note: If you want to test WebHelp Plus on your local computer,the advanced search features of WebHelp Plus are not operable.