What Are Hypergraphics?

A hypergraphic is a picture containing one or more hot spots. Like bitmap hot spots, hypergraphics let you use graphics instead of text to create links to other topics, display information in pop-up windows, and execute Help macros. The difference between bitmap hot spots and hypergraphics is that, using hypergraphics, you can define multiple hot spots within the same picture to perform all these operations. In this way, creating hypergraphics extends the usefulness of graphics in your Help file.

Conceptually, a hypergraphic consists of two layers:

nA Windows bitmap or metafile

nOne or more rectangular hot spots superimposed on the bitmap

The bitmap or metafile creates the picture that the user sees in the Help window, and the hot spots define regions within the picture that the user can interact with.

Here are just a few examples of how you might use hypergraphics in a Help file:

nTake a screen shot of a dialog box in your application and define hot spots for each field so that a user can click the hot spots and learn how to use the dialog box options.

nCreate an illustration and add hot spots over different parts of the illustration that the user can click to see a description of the corresponding part.

nCreate a Contents screen or Help menu using a picture so that you can control the placement of text and graphics more precisely than with paragraph formatting. Define hot spots over the appropriate icons or jumps to give users access to the Help topics.

nCreate a visual map and add hot spots that jump to topics on the different regions shown in the map.

nCreate buttons for each letter of the alphabet and arrange them in groups (as a typewriter keyboard does, for example). Use the button picture as a hypergraphic in an online index or glossary so that the user can click a letter and see the entries for that letter of the alphabet.

nCreate a series of pictures that depict different states of an action or simulation. Make each picture in the series a hypergraphic so that when the user clicks a hot spot the picture changes to show the new state (like a door opening and closing, for example).

The rest of this chapter explains how to create and add hypergraphics to your Help file.