Be aware of the restrictions of tablet devices when putting your help on the iPad. Especially on the iPad 1, the processor is quite slow and memory is limited. This is not currently the place to display help systems with thousands of topics. It's also a good idea to keep topics relatively short.

Help & Manual 6 popups work on the iPad but their use is not really recommended. Use toggles instead and keep the link text for your toggles large so that it's easy for users to tap on them, even for users with big fingers. The same applies for links in your text. Lots of small, closely-spaced links that are hard to tap on without pinch-zooming are frustrating.

The iPad skin is stored in the Templates/HTML Skins/Premium Pack subfolder in the Help & Manual program folder. It is called iPadSkin.hmskin.

1.Make a copy of the iPadSkin.hmskin file in your project folder or anywhere else where you have full read and write permissions. You can't (and shouldn't) edit the original version on the program directory.

2.Open the skin file in Help & Manual and go to Project Explorer > Configuration > Common Properties > Text Variables to set up the configuration variables.

3.At the very least, set the variable BROWSER_REDIRECT to the address of your normal WebHelp for users who visit the site with normal browsers. If you don't do this users on other devices and browsers will just get a warning message telling them that they can't display the help with their browser.

4.See below for information on the other configuration variables.

Redirecting with a Premium Pack skin:

Next you need to set up the regular version of your help to automatically redirect iPad users to the iPad version. This is easy if you are using a Premium Pack skin. You just need to set the MOBILE_IPAD_REDIRECT variable to the address of your iPad version.

IMPORTANT: You must include the http:// prefix for all redirect addresses!!

Writing your own redirect code:

If you are redirecting from your own website without a Premium Pack skin, testing for the iPad with JavaScript is easy because Apple includes a special navigator.platform attribute that is unique and easy to read. In addition to this you also need to test for iOS Safari, because none of the third-party browsers now available on the iPad have the necessary capabilities to display WebHelp properly.

   // Test variables for iPad and Safari
   var isIpad = navigator.platform.indexOf("iPad") > -1;
   var isSafari = navigator.userAgent.indexOf("Safari") > -1;
   // Check for iPad and iPad without Safari
   if (!isIpad || (isIpad && !isSafari)) {
   // If we're on the iPad without Safari just warn the user
   if (!isSafari && isIpad) {
      alert("Please use Safari to display this help on your iPad!");
      window.history.back(1);
      } else { 
   // Otherwise we need to redirect the user seamlessly with location.replace
      document.location.replace("http://www.your_alternative_address.html"); 
      }

   } // End of main IF clause

Once you've completed the setup steps above you just need to compile a separate version of your help with the iPad skin and upload it to your server.

1.Publish your help to an empty folder using the iPad skin.

2.Upload to the new directory on your server for the iPad version of your help.

3.Check that the redirects are working properly from your normal help and from the iPad help to the normal help (for regular browsers.)

The configuration variables for the iPad skin are simple and most of them should be self-explanatory. The design and layout and colors of the navigation elements are currently fixed.