Creating Help Files
I’ve never written an Excel program complicated enough to require help files. Okay, that’s a lie, I have. And yet I’ve never created a help file (it’s on my to-do list, I swear).
Regular readers of this blog will know that I recently became enamored with the WebBrowser control. I love this control. I just wish FireFox made one.
I was thinking that the WebBrowser control would make a pretty nifty help file. You could customize the heck out of the text and you don’t need any third party hlp or chm compilers. Just create the HTML files in NotePad and display them in a form. Here’s my half-baked example.
See how I demonstrated all the formatting options you could use? No? Well, those two pages are about the extent of my HTML coding abilities, but you can do better.
Notice that this post is in the CodeCritic category. That means I want your feedback. What problems are associated with this that I haven’t thought of? What do you use for help files, if anything? Would this method be better or worse?
One problem would be that the hyperlinks would need to be adjusted when you distribute the application. I think that would be easy enough to handle. I leave you with a classic quote from Chip Pearson:
I hate writing help files, and usually farm the work out. If a program was
hard to write, it should be hard to use. If the users can’t read my mind, then
that’s not my problem!
That Dick is a good idea. That is a fine ide., it’s the sort of idea that I would have (who?). It is such a good idea, because it does not rely on complex coding, or some doggy thing or other, it’s a new way of using a control, birllint, bravo.
Good idea by the way. - still have to load the text files
“If a program was hard to write, it should be hard to use.”
Funny, I work hard to make a program easy to use
Jamie.
–
I should think that little in the way of HTML skills would be required if you create your help document in Word and ’save as’ filename.htm
The following may be of interest. While not so pretty (fast though) I do similar stuff in VB6 using a label control and text files formatted like this;
Topic 1
This is the text for topic 1
Topic 1
—
Topic 2
This is the text for topic 2
Topic 2
—
etc.
Then use a function to return stuff from the file eg.
LabelHelp.Caption = GetHelp(HelpFileName, “Topic 1″)
The GetHelp function just searches for “Topic 1″ in the file and returns text until it finds it again, I could post that code but it is’nt rocket science.
The Label control is typically located at the bottom of the form requiring help. Help can be static or automatically displayed by placing the calling code into MouseMove, GotFocus and other events for contols on the form.
What I often use is a Help user form, with help text either in text files or a worksheet. This makes it very easy for me or for the client to update.
One of my current clients is interested in a fully integrated system, though so I’ve been reading about html help.
- Jon
>>I just wish FireFox made one.< <
Not Firefox, but it has been done with Mozilla...
http://www.iol.ie/~locka/mozilla/mozilla.htm
Works the same way, only you would most likely need to include the ActiveX control and its supporting files with your program’s setup.
–
Max
Documentation for the WebBroser control:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/workshop/browser/webbrowser/webbrowser.asp
Hey Dick,
Have you tried making a multipage form with webbrowser controls in each page? I imagine it’d be easy to programmatically add new pages to it for a poor man’s tabbed browser.
It really shows you how friggin easy it would be for Microsoft if they really wanted to do it.
zfraile -
Cool idea. I wish you hadn’t brought it up, because now I keep thinking what I can do with it.
I’m using a third party browser shell, Maxthon (http://www.maxthon.com/), which essentially runs multiple IE windows within a multitabbed environment. I like it a great deal.
- Jon
You could write your own tabbed web browser using VB express then
Hi,
I am using *.chm files to provide help on an excel file. How do i call this help file from within excel?
I have already created the help.chm file.
Has anyone tried to make the multipage webbrowser in VBA with success? Upon execution, I have found that switching between different pages causes the webbrowser control to disappear.
Found the same problem with Multipage.
First time the page with the WebBrowser gets the focus it is all Hunky Dory. Then switch to another page and come back: surprise, the webbrowser is gone… vanished! I stepped into the code with debugger, but it didn’t show anything wrong!
Hi,
Does any one have the answer for the same…
Regards,
Yes. Once you change pages your webbrowser control seems to be destroyed. I had to work around this problem by using a tabstrip control. I move frame controls in and out of view in response to the tabstrip_change event. The end result looks identical to the multipage control with the added benefit of the webbrowser control not being destroyed. What a pain, huh?
I want to make help file for my excel add-in .
which tool will be ok?
same question as Rajendra…
I want to make help file for my excel add-in .
which tool will be ok?
can anyone pls help…