HTML Help ActiveX Control Overview

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Microsoft Corporation

Updated June 10, 1999

The HTML Help ActiveX control (Hhctrl.ocx) provides a rich feature set for help systems. Key features include: an expanding table of contents, keyword search, shortcuts, and pop-up help topics. The control is one of the authoring components that ships with Microsoft HTML Help. It is also included with many third-party HTML Help authoring tools.

The control provides functionality for two types of help systems:

A compiled help (.chm) file
The control uses both an Internet Explorer DLL (Shdocvw.dll) and the HTML Help compiler to offer a variety of features. Users view compiled help files in the Help Viewer. Compiled help files often ship with the programs that they document.

Uncompiled HTML files on a Web site:
The control uses Microsoft Internet Explorer to provide a subset of its feature set. The features of HTML Help can be used on a Web site to present a wide variety of content, from Web-based help to a Web site focused on entertainment.

Notes

• The HTML Help ActiveX control is designed to work with Internet Explorer and the Shdocvw.dll component. It does not include the design-time support that is necessary to use it with development tools, such as Microsoft Visual Basic Scripting Edition and Microsoft Visual C++.
• For more information about ActiveX technology, see Microsoft's Component Object Model (COM) technologies Web site.

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