nChapter 1, “The Windows Help Application,” explains the basic features of the Windows Help application that displays Help files.The Microsoft Windows Help Authoring Guide provides information for writers and developers of Help systems for Microsoft Windows-based applications. This section introduces the Windows Help environment and provides background information you should review before developing a Help file.
This guide is written for anyone who is creating a Help file, whether that person is a technical writer or a developer of applications for Windows. The word “you” as used in this guide refers either to the Help author or to the developer creating the Help system. The term “user,” on the other hand, refers to the person who will eventually use the Help files you create.
The Microsoft Windows Help Authoring Guide contains the following chapters:
nChapter 1, “The Windows Help Application,” explains the basic features of the Windows Help application that displays Help files.
nChapter 2, “Getting Started with Help Authoring,” explains the basic process for creating and building Help files. In this chapter you’ll create a simple Help file to learn the basics of Help authoring.
nChapter 3, “Designing the Help System,” discusses issues and tradeoffs to consider when designing your Help system.
nChapter 4, “Help Authoring Guidelines,” provides a set of general and specific guidelines you can follow as you create topics.
nChapter 5, “Using Help Author,” explains Microsoft Help Author, a tool that makes creating Help files simpler and easier. The first part of the chapter explains how to use the Help Project Editor to create Help files. The second part explains how the Windows Help Authoring Templates customize Microsoft Word for Windows to make creating topic files easier.
nChapter 6, “Creating Topics,” explains how to create Help topic files and how to add the Help-specific information that the Help compiler uses to identify topics, create a keyword index, organize topics into browse sequences, and run macros.
nChapter 7, “Formatting Topics,” explains how to format the text and graphics that you include in topic files. The chapter describes various formatting techniques, such as selecting fonts, creating tables, creating margins, and using special characters.
nChapter 8, “Creating Links and Hot Spots,” explains how to create links between topics in the Help system and how to create hot spots that run Help macros.
nChapter 9, “Defining Topic Windows,” explains how to display topics in different Help windows, such as pop-up, secondary , and embedded windows. It also explains how to add nonscrolling regions to topic windows.
nChapter 10, “Adding Graphics,” explains how to add pictures to topic files, how to control the layout of text and graphics within a topic, and how to display information activated from “hot” graphics.
nChapter 11, “Creating Hypergraphics,” describes hypergraphics and explains how to use Hotspot Editor to create graphics with multiple hot spots.
nChapter 12, “Creating Graphics for Different Displays,” explains how to use the Multi-Resolution Bitmap Compiler to combine graphics with different display resolutions into a single file format so that they will look good on different machines.
nChapter 13, “Customizing the Help File,” explains how to use Help features to change the way your Help file appears and how users work with it. The first part of the chapter discusses ways to customize Help menus and buttons. The second part shows other ways to change Help features.
nChapter 14, “Help Macros,” describes Help macros and explains the rules for constructing macros and using them in the Help file.
nChapter 15, “Help Macro Reference,” contains a list of all the Help macros you can use to customize your Help file or the Windows Help feature set.
nChapter 16, “The Help Project File,” describes the format and contents of the Help project file, which defines how a Help file is built, and explains how to use it to customize Windows Help for your Help file.
nChapter 17, “Building the Help File,” explains how to build a Help file, how to fix problems that arise during the build process, and how to display a Help file after it has been built.
nChapter 18, “Help Error Messages,” explains each of the Help error messages that you might encounter when building a Help file with the Help compiler version 3.1 or 3.0.
nChapter 19, “The WinHelp API,” explains the WinHelp API. It describes how to create context-sensitive links within the application and how to call WinHelp to perform Help-related operations.
nChapter 20, “Writing DLLs for Windows Help,” explains how to write a dynamic-link library (DLL) for Windows that extends the functionality of Windows Help. This chapter shows how an application can use custom DLLs to provide additional functionality to Help authors or to control the behavior of topic elements placed in embedded windows.
nAppendix A, “Windows Virtual-Key Codes,” shows the symbolic constant names, hexadecimal values, and keyboard equivalents for the virtual-key codes used by Microsoft Windows version 3.1. You use these virtual-key codes to provide keyboard access for Help macros within the Help file.
nAppendix B, “Help RTF Statements,” describes the syntax and purpose of rich text format (RTF) statements supported by the Microsoft Help compiler. The RTF statements define the formats used to encode Help features in the source topic files.
nAppendix C, “Baggage Access Functions,” provides specialized source code that can be built into an application or custom DLL so that it can retrieve the appropriate data file from the Help file’s [BAGGAGE] section.