Custom Help Screens in RSLogix 5 and 500
September 2004
Disclaimer: Although I have made efforts to ensure this document is correct, it is your responsiblitiy to prove the accuracy of all information in this document before invoking it in any way.

For each application, one customized help screen can be created. This help screen can be in many formats including text, html, and word document format.

Since there is only one custom help screen available per project, this example will use the HTML format. Using HTML, we can create a local web page with links to other documents. This makes this feature very useful.

For this example, we will create 3 web pages. A Main page called main.html, and two other pages called page1.html, and page2.html. The user will call up the main page from RSLogix, and from the main page, the user can bring up page 1 or page 2.

1)The first step is to bring up a standard text editor such as windows notepad. This is under Start | Programs | Accessories.

2)Now, you can copy and paste the following code into windows notepad:

<html> <head><title>This is my main page</title></head> <body> <font size=5>This is the body of my Main Page</font> <p><a href=page1.html>Click here for page 1</a></p> <p><a href=page2.html>Click here for page 2</a></p> </body> </html>

3) Next click File | Save As from the menubar in notepad. 4)The file will be called main.html on the main C: drive as shown. Be sure to set the file type as All Files, then save your work.

5)A similar procedure will be followed for Page 1 and Page 2. Click File | New in notepad to create a new document.

6)Paste the following code into notepad:

<html> <head><title>This is Page 1</title></head> <body> <font size=5>This is the body of Page 1</font> <p><a href=main.html>Click here to go back to main</a></p> <p><a href=page2.html>Click here for page 2</a></p> </body> </html>

7)Click File | Save As, to save page1.html to the C: drive. Again be sure to select files off All Types as shown below, and then click the save button.

8) Again, click File | New in notepad

9)Paste the following code into notepad:

<html> <head><title>This is Page 2</title></head> <body> <font size=5>This is the body of Page 2</font> <p><a href=main.html>Click here to go back to main</a></p> <p><a href=page1.html>Click here for page 1</a></p> </body> </html>

10)Click File | Save As, to save page2.html to the C: drive. Again be sure to select files off All Types as shown below, and then click the save button.

You can now go back and modify the content of the pages, or even add pages so they fit the need of your application.

12)Next, RSLogix needs to be configured so the user help feature knows what file to look for. Open RSLogix, and then open the project (.rsp or .rss file) that you wish to link this help information to.

13)In the project tree, expand the help folder (Click the +):

14)Right click on User Application Help, and choose Properties.

15)You are then asked for the location of the help file. This will be c:\main.html . You can also browse for the help file. Click OK when the help file location is correct.

16) Now you can select user application help either from the project tree, or from the help menu on the menubar.

17)Your default browser is now launched, and navigation should work correctly.