More Advanced Procedures > Using Context-Sensitive Help > Context help support by output format

The options you have for implementing context-sensitive help depend on your output format, because different formats support different ways of making calls to your help files. This topic lists the different types of context help possible in the output formats supported by Help & Manual.

For more details on context-sensitive help, the available context-sensitive help technologies and implementation information for programmers see the Context-Sensitive Help & Popups chapter in the Reference section.

These are the standard Microsoft help formats for Windows applications. They are used for help installed locally on the user's computer. Winhelp is now obsolete and is not officially supported in Windows Vista.

Calls to HTML Help (CHM files) and Winhelp (HLP files) are made using the HTML Help and Winhelp APIs, which are documented in the help files delivered with the free Microsoft help compilers. For details see Application calls to context-sensitive topics.

Making the calls is up to your programmers; each programming language has different methods for doing this. You can download programming tutorials from our website.

Supported context-sensitive help types

•	Calls to specific help topics Display a specific topic in your help, inside the main help window.

•	Calls to anchors in specific help topics Display a specific topic in your help file in the main help window and scroll down to an anchor (jump target) within the topic.

•	Field-level popups These are small popup windows displayed in your application. They are read from the help file but the main help window is not opened. Useful for documenting individual fields and controls in your application (thus the name).

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Training card help
Training card help uses the HTML ActiveX control (CHM) or WinHelp macros (HLP) to create special interactive links between your help topics and your application. In theory you can use training card help to create interactive tutorials that guide users through steps of doing things in your program. In practice it is so difficult to implement that most developers try it out once and then decide that it is not worth their time. You can insert ActiveX objects for training card help with Help & Manual's Write > Insert Object > Plain HTML Code command (HTML Help) or with hyperlinks using Winhelp macros.

Webhelp is displayed in a normal web browser like Firefox, Safari, Opera or even Internet Explorer. It is used for help accessed on networks and the Internet. Calls to Webhelp are made with normal URLs.

Supported context-sensitive help types

•	Calls to specific help topics Display a specific topic in your help, inside the main help window.

•	Calls to anchors in specific help topics Display a specific topic in your help file in the main help window and scroll down to an anchor (jump target) within the topic.

These print-style formats do not support any real context-sensitive help features. You can open the help files with a link to the file but that is all. You cannot make calls to individual topics within the help files.