Java How to Display a Manual

Question

I am making a manual for one of my applications. I was wondering the best way to display a manual using Java.

My idea is to create something like how Adobe Reader shows PDF files. The "map" of the document is on the left and the contents of the "chapter" are on the right.

How would I go about replicating this?

Answer 1

You could just create a PDF file, and opening it with the Desktop class. The user's preferred PDF viewer would open the manual.

Or you could host the manual in HTML format on a publicly available web site, and use the same class to browse to the appropriate URI (which would have the advantage of being able to have a more contextual help, by linking to an appropriate URL).