More Advanced Procedures > Templates in Help & Manual

Secondary windows are only relevant in the Microsoft HTML Help and Winhelp formats. They are used to display individual topics in external windows. In addition to this you can use secondary windows in Winhelp to define different header and topic background colors for individual topics. In all other formats header and topic background colors are defined in the HTML page templates.

Productivity Tip

Avoid using hyperlinks in secondary windows. Although an external window is a full instance of the help viewer hyperlinks between it and the main help can quickly get very confusing for the user.

In HTML Help and Winhelp you can use additional help window definitions to display topics in external windows when they are opened with hyperlinks. Topics can only be displayed in external windows in these two formats and the help window settings have no effect in other help formats.

Important: Help window types can only be used in hyperlinks.
You cannot directly associate a help window type with an individual topic and you cannot set a topic in the TOC to open in an external window when you click on its TOC entry.

HTML Help:

1.	In the Project Explorer go to Configuration > Common Properties > Help Windows and create at least one secondary help window type definition with Add.

Adjust the settings of the window definition as you want the external window to appear – in addition to the size and position you may want to switch off navigation controls etc. in the help window definition's HTML Help Options tab.

2.	In the HTML Help Options tab activate the option Links to secondary help windows open a new help window.

3.	When you create a hyperlink to a topic specify the secondary help window type with the Window: setting in the link definition.

When the user clicks on the hyperlink the target topic it will now be displayed in an external window in HTML Help, with all the settings defined for the window type in step 1.

Winhelp:

No special settings are required for Winhelp because links to secondary windows always open in external windows in Winhelp. Just specify a secondary window in the hyperlink definition, then the hyperlink will open the target topic in an external window.

Winhelp stores the background colors of the topic and header in the help window definition. All other formats save the background colors in the HTML page template.

You can apply different background colors to individual topics in Winhelp by defining a new help window with different colors and selecting it in the Help Window: field in the tab behind the main editor window.

See Background colors and help viewers for details on how to set the background colors in Winhelp and other formats.