More Advanced Procedures > Visual Studio Help (MS Help 2.0)

If you are not familiar with Visual Studio .NET you shouldn't really even think about working with Visual Studio Help (Help 2.0). It is an extremely complex help system and the Help 2.0 compiler is both tricky and picky.

The Help 2.0 compiler requires a "Namespace" and a "Unique Identifier" (also referred to as a "Unique Title ID" in the documentation). Both must be entered otherwise the compiler will quit with an error message. (The Namespace is used to call the help viewer, the Unique Identifier is like a Topic ID for the entire help file.)

In Help & Manual you can enter these settings in Configuration > Publishing Options > Visual Studio Help > Namespace & Options.

Unlike HTML Help CHM files you cannot just copy a Visual Studio Help HXS file to your disk and then click on it to start it. It must be installed and registered with the MS Installer first.

When you compile HXS files with Help & Manual they are installed and registered automatically on your development machine so that you can view them there. However, when you distribute your files you must configure the MS Installer to do this. See the documentation of the installer and your Microsoft Visual Studio package for details.

If you reference any additional files in your HTML topic templates you must add them to the Baggage Section in the Project Files section of the Project Explorer. MS Help 2 does not have anything like an .HHP file with which you can tell the compiler to include additional files. (Yet another surprising limitation compared to Microsoft's other earlier help formats.)

If you add files to the Baggage Section they will be included in your compiled output automatically.

Help & Manual supports two different compile options for Visual Studio Help. Normally you will compile a finished HXS file, which will then be automatically registered on your local development computer and opened. If this does not work properly there is also a debugging option called Do not compile, open with VStudio in the Publish dialog.

•	If you select the Do not compile option Help & Manual generates a Visual Studio Help Project file with the extension .HWProj in the temporary output directory. This is a small XML file that acts as a wrapper for Visual Studio.

•	When you select this option the temporary output directory (in your project directory) is not deleted after you compile the project. After compiling you can then use the .HWProj file to open and compile the project file directly in VS.Net, using the debugging options available there.

The following two calls are just brief examples. For full details please refer to the documentation of VS.NET and the VSHIK!

Manual registration of an .HXS file:

"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Help 2.0 SDK\hxreg" -n Namespace -i UniqueID -c MyHelpfile.HXS

Call to view an .HXS file:

"C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Help\dexplore.exe" /helpcol ms-help://ECSoftware

As you can see there is no file name in the call. In the above example ECSoftware is the Namespace. The viewer will only find the file if it has been registered correctly.