[ndoc-devel] FW: [MSHelp2] Whidbey (Visual Studio 2005)

[Donald K. <dka...@ya...>]

Below is a message posted to the MSHelp2 yahoo group run by Rob Chandler
(author of h2reg and FAR and all around help guru).

 

Looks like some minor changes to the html help 2 technology for vs.net 2005
(plus style changes) but nothing that impacts the VS.NET documenter too
much.

 

don

 

  _____  

From: Rob Chandler [mailto:ro...@he...] 
Sent: Tuesday, December 14, 2004 6:02 PM
To: MS...@ya...
Subject: Re: [MSHelp2] Whidbey (Visual Studio 2005)

 

At 07:46 AM 14/12/2004, you wrote:

>Has anybody out there taken a good look at the VS help
>collection/infrastructure for Whidbey? Having just glanced at it on
>somebody else's machine, I see that there seems to be a new style sheet
>and a new collection namespace but it seems essentially the same as the
>VS2003 collection. Any innovations or tinkering with the Help2
>infrastructure to be aware of?
>
>Charlie Lloyd
>www.epicor.com
Yes the new CSS is pretty :-)
I'd like to explore this some more.

Although content might be similar the organization of files is different.
Looks like to achieve scoped install (custom install) they moved from
a "many titles in a collection" model, to a "many collections plug-in
to a main collection" model. Have a look at the Collections installed
using FAR HTML or using whatever registered help explorer you use.

The other thing I noticed is they can finally control plug-in order. This
is done by using IDs in the TOC item.  Thus a master Collection can
have many plug-ins. These plug-ins will appear in a fixed order no matter
what the installation order (as long as MS Help 2.5 run time is installed).

You can find details on controlling plug-in order here:
See "TOC Update whitepaper" download at
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/htmlhelp/ht
ml/hwmscExtendingNETHelp.asp

There seems to be little else that has changed with the Help API its self.
The Help in VS (nothing to do with Help 2.5 API) is a little different...

OK I might as well dump some other things I have gleamed from MS
incase its helpful:---

Scott Swanson - Program Manager for Visual Studio Help experience

Scott: Several people posted that they turn off the Dynamic Help window in 
Visual Studio. We have heard this feedback and in Whidbey, we are changing 
a couple of things in Dynamic Help. First, the Dynamic Help window will not 
be shown by default. Second, once you hide Dynamic Help, it won't come back 
the way it does in Visual Studio 2002 and 2003.

Rob: Search results are still limited to max 500 hits. However relevancy 
order is much improved so hopefully you will find what you want on the 
first page.

Scott: There are now abstracts in the search results just like web search 
engines provide. Abstracts are pretty broken in all builds before Beta 
1.  In Beta 1, they will be greatly improved and will be final in beta 2.

Scott: You can also export your searches and share them with other users or 
move them to multiple machines.

VS Help SDK

Scott: We will be publishing an SDK that shows how anyone can implement an 
online search provider and register with VS.  That means that VS 
Integrators could create an online search server that their customers could 
search from help in addition to local help content they might register with 
Help 2.x.

Watch this Space

Cheers
Rob Chandler
http://helpware.net



MSHelp2 Home Page: http://www.helpware.net/mshelp2/ 






Yahoo! Groups Sponsor



ADVERTISEMENT
 
<http://us.ard.yahoo.com/SIG=129c61sh2/M=298184.5639630.6699735.3001176/D=gr
oups/S=1705543895:HM/EXP=1103155378/A=2434971/R=0/SIG=11eeoolb0/*http:/www.n
etflix.com/Default?mqso=60185400> click here


 
<http://us.adserver.yahoo.com/l?M=298184.5639630.6699735.3001176/D=groups/S=
:HM/A=2434971/rand=566725643> 

 

  _____  

Yahoo! Groups Links

*	To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MSHelp2/
  
*	To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
MSH...@ya...
<mailto:MSH...@ya...?subject=Unsubscribe> 
  
*	Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo!
<http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/>  Terms of Service.