HTML Apple Help

Since Mac OS X, Apple, Inc. offers a smart Apple Help Viewer for applications. You have to register a so-called Apple Help Book for the app in the system. It has to be available in a certain folder within the app bundle. Basically, an Apple Help Book is a collection of HTML files, images and CSS commands, just like a website. But it is important that the homepage of these HTML pages contains two meta tags for the Apple Help Viewer or it cannot be recognized properly.

So in general, the UDO created Apple Help Book format is an HTML format, with two meta tags added to the homepage file (index.htm or similar):

Example:

Before:

# preamble
!macro   PROD          iCalamus
!docinfo [appletitle]  (!PROD) Manual
!docinfo [appleicon]   (!PROD)%20Help/img/iC_feather_16.png

Afterwards:

Hints:

The AppleTitle in the example (here: iCalamus Manual) doesn't have to be identical to the folder name of the Apple Help Book (here: iCalamus Help).
CSS commands in Apple Help Books must not include elements (e.g. images) from outside the folder which contains the Apple Help Book. UDO cannot check this. Check for remote files e.g. in Safari's Error Console.
Starting with Mac OS X v10.6 (Snow Leopard), Apple has changed the Apple Help Book format. The Apple Help Books created by UDO still support the format up to Mac OS X v10.5 (Leopard).