Help Support Provided by AppWizard

In addition to the other features AppWizard provides in the starter application files, AppWizard adds the following items to support context-sensitive Help:

• Message-map entries in your derived frame-window class (CMainFrame) for handler functions to handle Help menu items and F1 and SHIFT+F1 help. These handlers are predefined by the framework.

  To view the message-map entries, look in the message map of file MainFrm.cpp, under the \\global help commands section.

• A new Help Topics item in the menu definitions, including a status bar prompt.

  To view the menu item, open ResourceView, expand the Menu folder, and double-click IDR_HELPAPTYPE. To view the status bar prompt string, right-click one of the menu items, then click Properties and examine the Prompt box in the Menu Item Properties page.

• A Windows Help Project file with an .HPJ extension, named for your project.

  This file is located in the project \HLP directory. To view the .HPJ file, open FileView, expand the Source Files folder, and double-click HelpApp.hpj. You edit this file to reflect the changes you make to your application Help system.

• One or more RTF (rich-text format) files (.RTF extension) containing help contexts and boilerplate text.

  These files are located in the project \HLP directory. To view any of these files, open them in Microsoft Word or other word processing application that views RTF files.

  You can add application-specific help contexts and text to these files to customize your application Help system, and add new topics or delete unused topics.

  You can fine-tune your application help further by overriding portions of the class library to support more specific help contexts, such as individual controls in a dialog box.

• Several bitmap (.BMP) files used to display graphics in the Help system.

  These are located in the project \HLP directory. To view any of these files, open FileView and expand the Help Files folder. Double-click the file title to open it in the resource editor.

• A .CNT file which contains the information needed to create the help Contents screen.

  Note   When you first build the starter AppWizard application with context-sensitive Help support, the Help files are compiled for you, so that you can immediately take advantage of this feature. Once you customize the Help files, you must recompile them to incorporate your changes into the application project. For more information, see Compiling Your Help Files later in this lesson.