Connect new .chm files to old Programs?

Factual Questions
1

I have posted this on a number of forums dedicated to C++ programing including the MS developer forum and have no responses.

I have a number of C++ programs I wrote using MFC (microsoft foundation classes). Mostly SDI and some dialog based.

They have all been ported to Visual Studio 2005. The help files are the old .hlp type that is no longer used. They are not context- sensitive.
I have rewritten some in the new .chm format.
What I need is a guide on how to change my programs so the .chm file is called when help is clicked.

Can someone point me to a guide on how to do this?

2

There is a ton of information on this, did you try google? ‘MFC Help CHM’ should do it for you.

3

Yeah I did that and got about 5000 hits none of which seemed to be what I need. I didn’t look at all of them of course but the relevancy petered out after the first 20 or so. I also did a search on the MS forum with no luck.

However, I have found one link I am going to evaluate later - Links to Online Help, HTML, and Hypertext References. I have some honeydos to work on this afternoon.

4

Ok, I’m bored and will do it for you :wink:

FWIW, this type of question is over 10 years old (HTMLHelp is nearly obsolete itself) - hence the dearth of answers on MSDN. Also, I find that questions like “I’m having trouble doing ‘xyz’ with HTMLHelp” are more frequently answered than the more general “How do I do ‘X’”.

5

Many thanks, I will try it.

<<(HTMLHelp is nearly obsolete itself)>>
What is going to replace HTML/chm help?

Some of my programs are over 20 years old and are still in use by a few people so I try to update some of them as things evolve.

6

I’m not as up to date as I used to be, but IIRC, HTML Help came out with Windows 98 and was to be replaced by a new system with the release of Vista, but it was cancelled just before release.

I think that the new system is called MS Help 3, but I don’t know much about it. There is a a wiki - http://www.mshelpwiki.com that might help you out.

7

The link you posted in your last message eventually led to two ways of doing what I want. Now just have to get the time to mess with it.

It appears that MS Help 3 is now called Windows Help Viewer 1 and ships with Visual Studio 2010.
The help files are longer compiled but are common zip files with something called meta tags keeping track of everything.

Maybe someone will publish a Windows Help Viewer for Dummies…I think that is what I need.