Microsoft Office 2000/Visual Basic Programmer's Guide

Using HTML Help to Author a Web Site

There are two ways to use HTML Help functionality when authoring Web sites. You can:

• Use the HTML Help ActiveX control or the HTML Help Java applet to implement navigation to documents on your Web site by using a hierarchical table of contents tree control or an index.
  
  
• Use HTML Help Workshop to create a compiled HTML Help file, and then create URLs to display HTML pages from the compiled HTML Help file in Internet Explorer.

To implement navigation by using the HTML Help ActiveX or the HTML Help Java applet, you first create the HTML files and other documents you want to use from your Web site. Then you use HTML Help Workshop to create table of contents and index files to navigate to your documents. Finally, you insert the control or applet in a Web page and use it to display the table of contents and index you created. Typically a Web site authored by using the HTML Help ActiveX control or Java applet uses a custom frameset to produce similar functionality to the freestanding HTML Help Viewer.

Displaying an HTML page from a compiled HTML Help file simply requires you to format the appropriate URL to open and display the HTML file.