Creating Modular Output for Microsoft Help Viewer Targets

The Microsoft Help Viewer (MHV) target is exclusively for integration with the Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 (and above) output (see Output Types).

The purpose of a MHV modular project is to combine the tables of contents of multiple projects so that they appear as a single TOC when integrated with Visual Studio 2010 (and above) output.

Example  

Let's say your company develops almost 300 controls for Visual Studio. These controls are grouped into several studios. In order to create a single TOC for the products within Visual Studio's Help system, you create an MHV modular project. Not only is a merged TOC created, but the multiple MHV 1.x setups (HelpContentSetup.msha files) are merged into a single setup.

  1. Set up your modular file structure in Windows Explorer (see About Modular Projects). You will not need the Redistributables folder.
  2. If you have already created your child projects, simply drag them into this file structure. Make sure all of the child projects have their Microsoft Help Viewer targets built.
  3. Create a new project that will serve as the hub or parent project. The project name should contain no spaces.
  4. Select the Project ribbon.
  5. At the bottom of the Project group, click . The Project Settings dialog opens.
  6. In the Output options section, select Is modular hub project.
  7. Click OK to close the Project Settings dialog.
  8. Open the hub project's source document and create placeholder topics for each of the child topics you wish to associate with the hub.
  9. Build the Microsoft Help Viewer target.

  10. Open the Topics window. Right-click on each of the topics, and select Properties from the menu. In the Topic Properties dialog, set the following in the Module link section:

    • In the Module file field, choose the manifest file (.msha) that the topic should link to.

    • If you would like the topic chosen to be the parent of all the topics in the child project, select the Use first topic as parent check box.

    • If you would like the product name listed in the Help Targets dialog for your project to be inherited by all the children, select the Inherit Product name check box. (It is selected by default.)

    • If you would like the book name property listed in the Help Targets dialog for your project to be inherited by all the children, select the Inherit Book name check box.

  11. Rebuild the Microsoft Help Viewer target.

Note You can map a topic to .msha files that were created in another modular hub project. This makes it possible to create nested (multi-level) hub projects.

Note All files in the MHV target folders (MSHelpViewer by default) are required to create a successful setup.

Following are limitations of this kind of output:

  • The content of child setups must contain .mshc files (not .cab files).
  • Breadcrumbs are not supported in the parent and child setups.

If you don't want to use an .msha file built by Doc-To-Help, you can manually create a .msha file with any list of child setups and use it.

A manifest list file is used to list all child setup manifests for a single hub topic.

This file is a standard XHTML file but must have the .msha extension.

Example  

Copy 
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
    <head>
        <title>MadCap Software</title>
    </head>
    <body class="manifest-list">
        <div class="manifest">
        <a class="manifest-link" href="C1BarCode/HelpContentSetup.msha">MadCap BarCode for .NET Help</a>
        </div>
        <div class="manifest">
        <a class="manifest-link" href="C1Zip/HelpContentSetup.msha">MadCap Zip for .NET Help</a>
        </div>
    </body>
</html>

Elements used in the file:

  • <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> Required.
  • <head> Optional (not used).
  • <title> Optional (not used).
  • <body class="manifest-list"> Required .
  • <div class="manifest"> Required (one or more).
  • <a class="manifest-link" href="HelpContentSetup.msha">MadCap BarCode for .NET Help</a> Required (only one in a manifest div). Its text is optional, not used.