Context-Sensitive Help

It is possible to map specific Help topics to your software application based on the user's location in the interface. This Help is most commonly accessed using a dialog Help button or icon, or by pressing the F1 button to open a Help window.

Topics are mapped to the software application using context IDs, which can be specified by the author or the software developer. If the context IDs will be supplied by the author, Doc-To-Help can be set (if desired) to automatically generate context IDs and assign them to specified topic types or paragraph styles. If the context IDs will be supplied by the software developer, the author can easily map them to topics in HTML Help or NetHelp targets.

If your context IDs were assigned in Doc-To-Help, the appropriate context ID file type for your software application will be automatically generated and stored in your project. You can also export the IDs to Microsoft Excel or a text (TXT) file. See Printing and Exporting the Topic List.

  1. On the Project ribbon, click Styles. The Project Styles dialog opens.
  2. Select a topic type or paragraph style that you would like auto context IDs to be assigned to.
  3. Select the Auto Context ID check box in the Behavior section.
  4. Repeat for all relevant topic types and paragraph styles. (You may want to start out by selecting the Heading 1, Heading 2, and Heading 3 paragraph styles only.)
  5. Click OK.
  6. On the Project ribbon, click Project Settings. The Project Settings dialog opens.
  7. Select the Generate context IDs automatically check box in the Context IDs section.
  8. If you are creating a modular project (i.e., one that contains multiple projects), you may want to assign an ID offset to avoid duplicate IDs across your projects. See Modifying Context IDs in Modular Projects.
  9. Click OK.

Context IDs will be generated for all selected topic types and paragraph styles. They can be viewed in the Topics window.

  1. Open the Topics window.
  2. Right-click on a topic. From the menu, choose Properties. The Topic Properties dialog opens.
  3. If a context ID has already been assigned to the topic, that ID will appear in the Context ID field. You may edit this field or assign a new ID. Even auto-assigned context IDs may be edited.

  4. If you would like to assign more than one context ID to a topic, enter them with plus signs separating them (e.g., 45 + 46 + 47).

    Note You can assign multiple context IDs to a single topic, but you cannot assign the same ID to multiple topics.

  5. Click OK.

The context ID files are stored in your project, in the appropriate target folder. The appropriate file should be given to the software developer to implement context-sensitivity. The folder names provided below are the defaults; if you have changed the target folder names in your project they will be saved to those folders instead.

  • Project Folder Name HTMLHelp
  • File Name projectname.h
  • Project Folder Name NetHelp
  • File Name context.xml
  • Additional File Needed D2H_ctxt.*, located in C:\Program Files (x86)\MadCap Software\MadCap DocToHelp 6\Context-Sensitive Help
  • Project Folder Name JavaHelp
  • File Name projectname.jhm

"What's this?" Help is context-sensitive documentation that is accessed by clicking a question mark icon in a dialog and then selecting a field or other object in the dialog. "What's this?" Help then appears in a popup.

For HTML Help, apply the WhatsThis style to the topics and map them like any-other context-sensitive Help topic using context IDs. In the Document Properties dialog of the source documents containing these topics, set Plain Text Popups to yes.

For more information about specific targets, see the following:

Note You can also embed NetHelp targets into web pages. See Embedding NetHelp Targets Into Web Pages.