Microsoft Office 2000/Visual Basic Programmer's Guide

Custom Help Windows

If you are distributing compiled HTML Help files, you can use HTML Help Workshop to customize the appearance of the default HTML Help Viewer window, or you can create additional custom window definitions that change the window's size, position, background color, and other attributes. You can also embed a Help window directly within the user interface of your solution. These are the types of windows you can create or customize:

• The HTML Help Viewer window, which by default is displayed as the three-paned window described in the previous section. Its appearance can be customized by creating a custom window definition.
  
  
• A secondary window is a custom window in which you assign topics to display. You can customize a secondary window to be as full-featured as the HTML Help Viewer or to have fewer features; for example, to display as a single pane without the toolbar.
  
  
• An embedded topic window that is nested in an application; for example, as a window displayed on a tab in a dialog box. To implement an embedded window, an application must use calls to the HtmlHelp API. The docked Help window used to display Help in Office 2000 applications is an example of an embedded Help window.

You create window definitions and specify the default window type for your Help system in an HTML Help project file (.hhp). You can also specify custom window types to be used when you are displaying topics from the contents or index, and when you are linking to other topics by using the HTML Help ActiveX control.

If you develop your solution in Excel or PowerPoint, you can display your solution's Help topics in the same docked window used by the Office 2000 Help system. To do this, the default window type in your HTML Help project file must be defined with the same name as one of the window types used by the Office Help system. For more information about how to display custom Help topics in an Office application's Help window, see "Displaying Custom Help Topics in an Office Application's Help Window" later in this chapter.