Referencing to external helpfile from within a NDoc generated helpfile.

This document describes using the ActiveX Html Help Control to link two help-files.
After that I describe a method to implement this from within XML documentation in a C# file with the help of NDOC and an extensibility style sheet.

• Referencing to another help file with the ActiveX Html Control.
• Using NDoc to do this more easy.
• Use it without bothering about the details.
   

Referencing to another help file with the ActiveX Html Control.

To create a link to an external compiled help-file, we can use the shortcut command from the ActiveX Html Control.
To try this , use HTML Workshop and insert a ActiveX Html Control in your html-file:

As a result, this is placed in your html file:

<OBJECT id=MyId type="application/x-oleobject" classid="clsid:adb880a6-d8ff-11cf-9377-00aa003b7a11" codebase="hhctrl.ocx#Version=5,2,3790,309">
    <PARAM name="Command" value="ShortCut">
    <PARAM name="Item1" value=",hh.exe,MyOtherHelpFile.chm::/main.htm">
</OBJECT>

It defines a ActiveX Html Control object that is able to call "hh.exe" with parameter "MyOtherHelpFile.chm::/main.htm".
To place a hyperlink in your Html code that jumps to the other help file you can use use:

<a href="JavaScript:MyId.Click()">Go to my other help file</a>

Okay, that works.
Now how do we accomplish this from within XML documentation in a C# file?

Using NDoc to do this more easy.

When you don't know what XML documentation in C# is, please refer to "XML documentation" in MSDN.

Of course, we don't want to add the <OBJECT> ...</OBJECT> part directly into our C# file, that would make it unreadable.
What we do want is something like this:

///<externalHelp HelpFile="MyOtherHelpFile.chm::/main.htm" HelpObject="MyId"/>

...to create the ActiveX Html Control Object

and this...

/// For a description of the user-interface, see <externalHelpRef HelpObject="MyId">Go to my other help file</externalHelpRef>

...to define the jump.

We can accomplish this by using this extensibility style-sheet:

<OBJECT id="

" type="application/x-oleobject" classid="clsid:adb880a6-d8ff-11cf-9377-00aa003b7a11" >
        <PARAM name="Command" value="ShortCut" />
        <PARAM name="Item1" value=",hh.exe,

"/>
    </OBJECT>

<a href="JavaScript:

.Click()">

</a>.<br/>

Use it without bothering about the details.

1. Place NDocExternalHelp.xslt in the directory where your NDoc project-file is placed. (See also Setting up NDoc)
2. Set "ExtensibilityStyleSheet" in your NDoc project to ".\NDocExternalHelp.xslt".
3. Put
   ///<externalHelp HelpFile="MyOtherHelpFile.chm::/main.htm" HelpObject="MyId"/>
   in your C# file.
   Replace "MyOtherHelpFile.chm::/main.htm" by a proper reference to your help-file.
4. Put
   <externalHelpRef HelpObject="MyId">Go to my other help file</externalHelpRef>
   in your C# file
   Replace "Go to my other help file" by you own text.
5. Build Documentation using NDoc.