Linkgroups in Dynamic Help
I am using VS 2005 Beta 2, and I am having trouble grouping links in Dynamic Help. (FYI, I have followed the steps in
http://www.helpware.net/mshelp2/demo/DynamicHelp.htm). I do not have a topic level HxA file, but I have a collection level HxA file. Here is the relevant content of the collection level HxA file:
<AttName Id="8" Name="LinkGroup" Display="No" UIString="LinkGroup" AttType="Enum">
<AttVal Id="8_1" Name="VchuHelp" Display="No" UIString="VchuHelp" />
</AttName>
I have added my linkgroup to Microsoft Visual Studio 8\Common7\IDE\HTML\XMLLinks\1033:
<LINKGROUP ID="VchuHelp" Title="Vchu Help" Priority="600">
<GLYPH Collapsed="1" Expanded="2" />
</LINKGROUP>
I have also added the following to the XML data island of my help topic files:
<MSHelp:Attr Name="LinkGroup" Value="VchuHelp"/>
However, in dynamic help, my help topic is still grouped under the generic "Help" linkgroup. Am I missing any steps here?
Thanks.
[1154 byte] By [
vchu] at [2008-2-3]
I wonder if the following topic, "How to: Prepare Custom Help Topics for the Dynamic Help Window," at http://msdn2.microsoft.com/library/ms165124(en-us,vs.80).aspx, answers your question?
Regards,
Paul Cornell
Documentation Manager
Microsoft Developer Division User Education
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
vchu,
if your topic is showing up in dynamic help, then there is support for separating it into a particular LinkGroup. without seeing everything you've done, my best guess is that there is a misstep in setting the LinkGroup attribute on the topics--when the help system cannot find the LinkGroup attribute or cannot read its value, it will default to "help," which sounds like what's going on.
can you add other attributes and observe the help system filtering on them? (i.e., add DevLang=VB and watch a topic show up when you have a VB project open, but not a C# project). if so, do you have multiple LinkGroups accidentally defined on the same topics?
- chris
The problem is with defining Cusom LinkGroup. If I set the linkgroup to "Getting Started", my help topic would appear in "Getting Started".
However, if I have something like the following in my helpTopic.htm:
<MSHelp:Attr Name="LinkGroup" Value="VchuHelp"/>
Something like the following in my .HxA File:
...
<AttName Id="8" Name="LinkGroup" Display="Yes" UIString="LinkGroup" AttType="Enum">
<AttVal Id="8_1" Name="VchuHelp" Display="Yes" UIString="VchuHelp" />
</AttName>
...
and something like the following in a xml file in C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\Common7\IDE\HTML\XMLLinks\1033:
<LINKGROUP ID="GettingStarted" Title="Getting Started" Priority="300">
<GLYPH Collapsed="1" Expanded="2" />
</LINKGROUP>All the other attributes set by helpTopic.html and exposed by .HxA are picked up correctly by Visual Studio. The problem is with associating the help topic with a Cusom LinkGroup.
hi vchu,
so, the other reason why the help system would refuse to work with your custom attribute value for LinkGroup is because it doesn't recognize your value as a valid part of the LinkGroup enumeration. this leads me to believe that something is up with the way your HxA is being read in. and if that is the issue, it would be more difficult for me to diagnose (i am less familiar with that aspect of the system).
in any case, you should try adding an LItem to your XMLLinks XML file. i'd be interested to know if that does the trick. see the documentation here:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/vsintro7/html/vxtskAdvancedXMLHelpFile.asp
- chris
