Library tutorials & articles
Creating HTML Help
HTML Files
Now we need to create our first HTML File. Click New from the File Menu, and select HTML File. Click OK, and set the Title to "Test Help Home". Now, you will need to enter some HTML from scratch, or use a tool like FrontPage, and then copy in the HTML. For the moment, just use the code below:
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//IETF//DTD HTML//EN">
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<Title>Test HTMLHelp Home</Title>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
<H1>Welcome to Notepad Help</H1>
<p>This is our test home page that we will use
to show you how to create your own HTML Help Project</p>
</BODY>
</HTML>
Now, click File | Save As... and save the file in the
html directory that we created earlier as home.htm. As this page will
be both the default and the home page, go back to the Window Types dialog, and
set Default and Home as htmlhome.htm. Then, switch back to the
Project tab, click the Add/Remove Files
button. Then, click Add, and select the home.htm file you have just saved.
Click the SaveAll button ,
and then the compile button
.
Click Compile, and after a few moments your compiled help file will appear (if
it does not, check the log that is displayed for errors.). You can also display
it by selecting View | Compiled file. You have now successfully completed your
first HTML Help file! Your program should look something like this:
Because we have not specified a contents or index file, the Contents and Index tabs are not displayed. We will create these in the next section. As we will need more than one file in order to show you how to use the HTML Help Workshop, create two more html files, using the source below:
Test Topic 1 (save as Test_Topic_1.htm in the html folder):
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//IETF//DTD HTML//EN">
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<Title>Test Topic 1</Title>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
<H1>Test Topic 1</H1>
<p>This is Test Topic number 1</p>
</BODY>
</HTML>
Test Topic 2 (save as Test_Topic_2.htm in the html folder):
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//IETF//DTD HTML//EN">
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<Title>Test Topic 2</Title>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
<H1>Test Topic 2</H1>
<p>This is Test Topic number 2</p>
</BODY>
</HTML>
Don't forget to switch back to the Project tab, click the Add/Remove
Files
button. Then, click Add, and select the test_topic_1.htm and test_topic_2.htm
files you have just created. You can select them both at the same time by holding
down SHIFT, and clicking them.
You will also need to map Topics to ID's, and use Style Sheets if you wish.
James first started this website when learning Visual Basic back in 1999 whilst studying his GCSEs. The site grew steadily over the years while being run as a hobby - to a regular monthly audience ...
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Absolutely wonderful - before finding this I've spent hours trying to pick my way through this topic - thanks
hi,
i sent u how retrive the file
if you want how to create and the rest of the process, pls give some time
bye
HI, i found this is the one of of the way we can creat and its very simple;
System.Diagnostics.Process process = new System.Diagnostics.Process();process.StartInfo.FileName = System.AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory + "Urfile.chm";process.Start();
This will work definitely.
BYE
Hi. I went through your tutorial on creating HTML Help, but keep running into a very basic problem. After compiling the help file for the first time and opening up the chm file, my home.htm file does not display at all in the right window. I get the help file window (with the HIDE, BACK, FORWARD, etc. displayed, but the window on the right is blank. I followed your tutorial step by step, saved the html files in the directories as indicated, etc. What am I doing wrong? I receive no error messages or security warnings. Thanks in advance!
Can you give me any detail or any url where I can find about how to create chm files programmatically using C#??
Thanks in Advance
Nilesh Gambhava
i have tried to make popup in html help but coudn't. can somebody help.
I have kinda the same problem. Showing a topic works for me if the pages are within the chm file, however, if a topic is on a web site,
even though I can retrieve them by ciking on them, with the HtmlHelp function, both using HHDISPLAYTOPIC and HHHELPCONTEXT..
the help viewer jumps to the topic, but fails retrieving the page on the content pane. It does seem to synchronize, it doesn shange the content pane, but to a bad page, like it wants it to be within it.. or I don't really know. So please please, someone help me! you know what to do? have seen this?
Hi, I read your entire article and it really helped a lot but I can't wrap up what I've made because for some reason the help file just won't show.
Private Sub mnuHelpHowto_Click()
HTMLShowTopic 1030
End Sub
...
Public Sub HTMLShowTopic(lngTopicID As Long)
' Force the Help window to load a specific topic.
' The Help window will synchronize the
' Contents display automatically
htmlhelp hwnd, App.helpfile & ">Main", HHDISPLAYTOPIC, lngTopicID
End Sub
I don't quite understand why it will not show the help file, my comp appears to be processing something but in the end it does not show the help file. If I specify 0 as the lngTopicID it does show the window but at the default topic, not the topic I want it to show. FYI I have mapped the numbers to a file using the notepad trick.
Great I can use this now I understand it!
Well Done!
I followed the article and it fixed many of my problems but ...
I'm having problems displaying popup text with textboxes.
'No help ID matches control ID #...
Iv'e tested the popup text files outside the app and they're find. My code works with command buttons (only?).
Any ideas??
Excellent topic! this is very helpful, thanks a lot. It has been a great jumpstart for integrating html help file in VB. Hope you can include topics on popups.
Yes i do still have this problem.
Thankyou for your responce, unfortunatly i still cannot resolve my problem.
I have looked through some of the links you posted and i will look at the others in more detail when i have more time.
Thanks again.
Stevesoft,
In the unlikely event that you're still struggling with this problem...
> I have followed this tutorial and have the following problem:
>
> The code for displaying the contents or the index only works after i
> have pressed F1 to display help.
>
> Once i have done this once, the code works fine...... why is this?
The following are the principal documents on connecting HTML Help to an application. Maybe these will help.
http://www.smountain.com/mProgrammingHelp.htm (VB, C++)
http://www.mvps.org/htmlhelpcenter/mapping.htm
http://www.mvps.org/htmlhelpcenter/whcomplete.htm (VB)
http://www.workwrite.com/helpthink/vbliske.htm (VB)
http://helpware.net/delphi/index.html (Delphi)
http://www.workwrite.com/helpthink/delphi_chandler.htm (Delphi)
Pete
rollershade,
Just came across your message. Here's a very belated follow-up, in the unlikely event you still need this information.
> the ordinal 373 could not be located in the dynamic link library HHA.dll
Make sure that all the HTML Help runtime DLLs are properly installed and registered, using either:
HTML Help DLL Registrar (http://www.helpfulsolutions.com/)
MJ's Help Diagnostics (http://helpware.net/downloads/index.htm)
> the link u gave for the microsoft page cant be found
This was changed a little while ago to http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/htmlhelp/html/vsconHH1Start.asp.
Pete
i have installed it from the vb6 cd , but i try and run the html workshop, and i get this error
the ordinal 373 could not be located in the dynamic link library HHA.dll
any ideas, and the link u gave for the microsoft page cant be found
The code for displaying the contents or the index only works after i have pressed F1 to display help.
Once i have done this once, the code works fine...... why is this?
Stevesoft
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