JavaHelp is both an application and a format for

online help Online help is a form of user assistance that provides topic-oriented, procedural or reference information designed to assist in using a software application, web application or operating system. Online help linked to the application's state ( ...

files that can be displayed by the JavaHelp browser. It is written in

Java Java is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea (a part of Pacific Ocean) to the north. With a population of 156.9 million people (including Madura) in mid 2024, proje ...

, and is mainly used in Java applications. It can be used for any application and it does require the overhead of the JRE to load. The file format is

XML Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing data. It defines a set of rules for encoding electronic document, documents in a format that is both human-readable and Machine-r ...

. The

GUI Gui or GUI may refer to: People Surname * Gui (surname), an ancient Chinese surname, ''xing'' * Bernard Gui (1261 or 1262–1331), inquisitor of the Dominican Order * Luigi Gui (1914–2010), Italian politician * Gui Minhai (born 1964), Ch ...

uses a tri-pane layout, with a

toolbar The toolbar, also called a bar or standard toolbar (originally known as ribbon), is a graphical control element on which on-screen icons can be used. A toolbar often allows for quick access to functions that are commonly used in the program. Some ...

and

menu In a restaurant, the menu is a list of food and beverages offered to the customer. A menu may be à la carte – which presents a list of options from which customers choose, often with prices shown – or table d'hôte, in which case a pre-est ...

at the top, navigation pane on the left, and content viewer on the right. The navigation pane includes searching, indexing, and a table of contents.

License

JavaHelp application used to come with the GNU General Public License with Classpath exception However, since the source code from JavaHelp was put on GitHub for

JavaEE Jakarta EE, formerly Java Platform, Enterprise Edition (Java EE) and Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE), is a set of specifications, extending Java SE with specifications for enterprise features such as distributed computing and web servi ...

, the source code has been re-licensed to the

Common Development and Distribution License The Common Development and Distribution License (CDDL) is a free and open-source software license, produced by Sun Microsystems, based on the Mozilla Public License (MPL). Files licensed under the CDDL can be combined with files licensed under oth ...

. However the source code files are still (mistakenly) under the GPLv2 with Classpath exception license

References

Software help Computer file formats {{prog-lang-stub