I agree with Jeff. I have been building an app that includes an rss reader and found that html formatted RSS entries work pretty well -- it even properly displays links and images. The one problem (ironically) was that it can't display inline flash--like YouTube videos. So I tried the iframe approach but decided in the end to parse out any unsupported html tags and just display it in Flex. Much cleaner that way. In your case its even easier since you'll have control of the html you use in your help files.
As far as Robohelp, they were acquired by Macromedia and so now Adobe has that too: http://www.adobe.com/products/robohelp/ --- In flexcoders@yahoogroups.com, "Battershall, Jeff" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > If your HTML rendering needs are rudimentary, you can use HTTPService to > retrieve HTML files and use them for the htmlText property of the Text > control. It supports (but not that well) such things as unordered > lists, paragraphs and such. I've used this in combination with a vew > stack and button bar to display multiple pages of help text. It's crude, > but it works. Conceivably you could incorporate a Tree component and > use that as a menuing system to retreive content via HTTP and display it > in your content area. > > Jeff > > -----Original Message----- > From: flexcoders@yahoogroups.com > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Tracy Spratt > Sent: Friday, October 10, 2008 2:25 PM > To: flexcoders@yahoogroups.com > Subject: RE: [flexcoders] Create Help System in Flex - how to > display html in a canvas or component? > > > > Displaying full html in Flex (Flash Player) is not yet possible. > > > > What are your requirements? The simplest solution is to use a > separate browser to display the html help pages. The Flex side needs to > know "where" in the app the user is, and be able to determine the url to > display. Using ExternalInterface you can exercise quite a bit of > control over that window's behavior. > > > > Doing it all in Flex will be more difficult, primarily on the > editing side. Dynamic display based on xml content is easy, but > building a dynamic layout that looks like a help system might be a bit > tricky. Directly editing xml files is not advised for non-developers, > so you would need some king of wysiwyg editor... > > > > I would really like to see a Flex integration of something like > RoboHelp. Who owns RoboHelp anyway? > > > > Tracy > > > > > > > ________________________________ > > > From: flexcoders@yahoogroups.com > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of scottyale2008 > Sent: Thursday, October 09, 2008 6:59 PM > To: flexcoders@yahoogroups.com > Subject: [flexcoders] Create Help System in Flex - how to > display html in a canvas or component? > > > > I've built a flex gui that I want to display html files (or > least that > was my original thought). I tried doing some of the IFrame > techniques but it doesn't seem to work on a mac. > > Anyway, the end-goal is for creating a help system. When certain > links are clicked, I just want to display text in panel or > component. > The html files (or text files) would be separate so they can be > easily edited and/or changed without a recompile of the swf. > > Should I try doing the external files in html, txt, or xml > files? If > XML, would I just fill up the node with pages of the text that > represent the text? > > Sure I could do this with an html editor without flex, but I > want this > in a flex app! >
