Context Sensitive Help Visual Studio 2013

[sparafucile48]

Microsoft have very kindly supplied a FREE version of Visual Studio Community 2013. In a previous rant I berated them for no longer supporting Visual C++ 6.0.
VS Comunity 2013 works works very well but does not appear to support context sensitive help any longer. Does this mean that context sensitive help is no longer available to applications that are developed?

I am currently writing and application and would like to add help topics to it. I have downloaded help studio and have written the .chm help files but am struggling to write the code to launch them from the application written in C++. The net is not very helpful in how to do this. The best I have come up with is that context senstive help is no longer supported in VSC 2013. Does anyone have any suggestions how I might be able to implement the help system from the application?

Thank you in advance

Spara

[modoran]

Are you trying to launch .chm files from your application ? If so, use ShellExecute or ShellExecuteEx with "open" verb.

[andywestken]

The correct WinAPI call for handling HTML help files is HtmlHelp()

HWND HtmlHelp(HWND    hwndCaller,
              LPCSTR  pszFile,
              UINT    uCommand,
              DWORD   dwData);

About the HTML Help API Function
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms670172%28v=vs.85%29.aspx

But I am unclear about what you mean by Visual Studio no longer supporting context sensitive help. Are you talking about the MFC Wizard?

Edit: MSDN talks about them here as they're still dealt with by Visual Studio 2013:

Help Files (HTML Help)
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/74b3xxt7.aspx

Edit: But apparently MFC no longer supports context sensitive help :-(

HTML Help: Context-Sensitive Help for Your Programs
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dyd1yfww.aspx

HTML Help is not supported in this version of MFC.

Andy

[sparafucile48]

@modoran. Yes, I'm trying to launch .chm files from my application. I'll research the ShellExecute or ShellExecuteEx functions further.

@anydwestken. Yes I was talking about the MFC Wizard. There does not appear to be an appropriate section in the Wizard to implement Context Sensitive Help like there was in VC++ 6.0.

I'll look into the 2 links you've kindly sent me but they seem to be mutually exclusive! All very confusing. I still do not understand what Microsoft are up to. Surely, modern programs require context sensitive help? Or am I being naive?

Thanks guys

Spara

[andywestken]

You are not the first person to "whinge" about the removal of the MFC help support:

Missing context-sensitive help option in application wizard?
https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/vstudio/en-US/045a2e45-01cb-4be3-afc5-f1473496760f/missing-contextsensitive-help-option-in-application-wizard?forum=vcgeneral

It is probably possible to add support manually, but whether this is worth the effort would depend on how complicated your app's UI is and how keen you are!

Andy

[sparafucile48]

Thanks Andy.
What the $%^& are Micro$oft up to? That was a rhetorical question. I don't expect an answer. Does this mean that modern applications are bereft of context sensitive help? I must admit that I haven't bought any recently.

Actually, I'm learning to program in VC. The application I have almost completed is a simple statistical program. Simple if the user knows about the statistical technique I am using. I just wanted to add CSH for completion. So I'm keen to implement it. I'll let you know how I get on.

Thanks once again.

Spara

[sparafucile48]

It gets worse! Now the context sensitive help for some old commercially avaibalble software will not work. I get a message box saying "Failed to launch help". It appears the winhlp32.exe does not meet Microsoft's standards and was not shipped with Windows 8.1! This may be true but to my mind sub-standard(?) software is better than no software. What are we supposed to do? Words fail me.

I have tried to download winhlp32.exe from the net and although it appears to download it will not run. Similarly, a copy of this file from my laptop running under Windows 7 will not run either. I realise this is not the right forum to rant in but I'm just expasperated.

Cheers,

Spara