Creating Links to Version 3.0 Help Files

In some circumstances you may want to create a jump hot spot in your 3.1 Help file that jumps to a topic in a 3.0 Help file. If you create a standard interfile jump, Help will display the “Help topic does not exist” error message when the user chooses the jump. That is because Windows Help version 3.1 does not allow you to jump to any arbitrary topic in a 3.0 Help file based on the context string. However, you can use macros to create links to topics in a 3.0 Help file.

From a 3.1 Help file, you can:

nJump to the Contents topic in a 3.0 Help file by using the JumpContents macro, as in this example:

!JumpContents("30file.hlp")

nJump to a topic with a particular keyword in a 3.0 Help file by using the JumpKeyword macro. This method will work only if the topic has the keyword defined for it and that topic appears first in the list of topics that have that keyword defined.

!JumpKeyword("30file.hlp", "keyword")

nJump to a specifc topic in a 3.0 Help file that has a context number defined in the [MAP] section of the Help project file by using the JumpContext macro.

!JumpContext("30file.hlp", number)

nJump to any topic within a browse sequence in a 3.0 Help file by combining one of the above Jump macros with the Next and Prev macros. This method will work only if the topic you want to access is on a browse sequence, and you know the context number of another topic on the same browse sequence. When you use this method, Help will not display any of the intermediate topics in the sequence.

!JumpContext("30file.hlp", 801);Next();Next();Next()

For information on how to create a macro hot spot, see the “Creating Macro Hot Spots” section, later in this chapter.