See Also:
For more information on how to register your documentation manually, click here.
To create and view MS HTML Help 2 documentation you should have Help 2 SDK called VSHIK (Visual Studio Help Integration Kit) installed on your machine. You can download it from here. VSHIK installs Help 2 compiler (hxcomp) and registrator (hxreg) utilities required for creating and registering the existing documentation. Please see the installation order below.
Any generated Help 2 document needs to be registered by the hxreg utility before viewing. Registration process associates help file path with documentation Namespace and TitleId. Note that any document created by ApexSQL Doc will be registered automatically.
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See Also:
For more information on how to register your documentation manually, click here.
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Help 2 documentation is displayed by a special dexplore utility installed by VSHIK. For user convenience this Help 2 viewer may be started by ApexSQL Doc automatically after finishing of the generating process.
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See Also:
For more information on how to view the existing documents, click here.
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The Help 2.0 SDK (also known as Help 2.0 Workshop), is required to compile your help source to Visual Studio compatible help (.HxS) files.
It's important to note that MS Help 2 is designed primarily for Visual Studio help integrators. It is not for creating general application help.
How to Install Help 2.x SDK
VSHIK = Visual Studio Help Integration Kit (AKA Help 2 SDK)
This Microsoft product requires Visual Studio .NET installation.
Installing VSHIK when you have VS .NET installed:
These are all free downloads.
For VS 2002 (version 7.0) download VSHIK 2002 (Version 2.1). You may download it from here.
For VS 2003 (version 7.1) download VSHIK 2003 (Version 2.2). You may download it from here.
For VS 2005 (version 8.0) download Visual Studio 2005 SDK. You can download it from here. This was formally the VSIP SDK and now contains the Help 2 SDK (version 2.5).
For VS 2008 (version 9.0) download Visual Studio 2008 SDK. You can download it from here. It contains the Help 2 SDK (version 2.5).
Installing VSHIK when you don’t have VS .NET installed:
Officially, you must have VS .NET installed to install Help 2 Workshop. Unofficially, you can tweak the VSHIK install (VS 7.x) or VS 2005 SDK (VS 8.0) so that it skips the VS .NET dependency check. Thus tech writers and build machines etc. do not need a copy of Visual Studio.
To setup your PC for MS Help 2 authoring without installing VS:
1. Install the MS Help 2 Runtime.
For example: Install MSDN, TechNet or .NET SDK.
2. Download VSHIK (VS 7.x compatible Help SDK) and follow these instructions:
a. Download VSHIK Installer from here.
b. Expand the install file VSHIK.exe to a local folder (using for example, Winzip).
c. Copy patch_vshik_setup.msi.vbs file from ApexSQL Doc installation folder to the folder with the unzipped VSHIK.
d. Run patch_vshik_setup.msi.vbs file to unblock the installer
e. Run Setup.exe to install VSHIK.
Note: Full functionality of patched installation isn't guaranteed.
What does Help 2.0 SDK Install?
Help 2.0 SDK installs the following:
1. Help Compiler.
2. Help command line utilities - HxConv.exe, HxMerge.exe etc.
3. Help Workshop (integrates into Visual Studio .NET shell).
For VS 2005 and later the SDK now installs Innovasys HelpStudio Lite.
See Help 2.x Authoring in VS 2005
4. MSI modules used to integrate your help into VS help
5. Help SDK documentation.
Before viewing of the documentation it should be registered. ApexSQL Doc installation folder contains the Examples folder where there are 2 command files: reg.bat and view.bat in the HxS subfolder. You may also download the archive with the examples from our site.
The first batch file, reg.bat, is an example of how you may register the existing documentation:
"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Help 2.0 SDK\hxreg.exe" -n testDoc1 -c testDoc.HxS
"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Help 2.0 SDK\hxreg.exe" -n testDoc1 -i testDoc2 -s testDoc.HxS
Where “C:\Program Files\Microsoft Help 2.0 SDK” is VSHIK installation path, testDoc1 is a help file Namepspace, testDoc2 is a help file TitleID and testDoc.HxS is a help file name.
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See Also:
For information about setting up the help file Namespace and TitleId within application, click here.
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View.bat batch file contains an example of how to start viewing the generated documentation:
"C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Help\dexplore.exe" /helpcol ms-help://testDoc1/testDoc2
Where “C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Help\dexplore.exe” is a path to dexplore utility, testDoc1 is a help file Namespace and testDoc2 is a help file TitleID.
As it was mentioned above ApexSQL Doc Examples subfolder contains ready samples of the generated documentation. In the HxS folder you may find an HxS file sample along with the batches for registering and viewing. First, you need to manually edit the reg.bat and view.bat files pointing your local paths. Then start reg.bat file for registering of the sample file testDoc.HxS and run view.bat file for viewing the sample within dexplore utility. After running you should see the window below:
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