WPF ?

[Andrew Heard]

Windows Presentation Foundation

Our next generation application is being developed using WPF. Anyone know anything about this and how it may impact online help delivery? What's the best format?

[Pete Lees]

Hi, Andrew,

I wrote the online Help for a WPF application last year. The format that we chose was compiled HTML Help (.chm), as this is the Help format that Microsoft continues to recommend for Windows desktop applications. I don't believe that WPF offers any new facilities for integrating online Help in an application, and we just used .NET HelpProvider components to attach the Help file to the application. More information here:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library ... S.71).aspx
http://helpware.net/mshelp2/demo2/h1xNET.htm
http://www.help-info.de/en/Visual_Basic ... mlhelp.htm
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=821777

I posted a similar question in a few forums two years ago, including HATT (where I didn't get any responses). However, someone did reply to my questions in the Windows Presentation Foundation forum on MSDN:

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums ... d7a48cbd0b

Pete

[Andrew Heard]

Thanks, Pete, for the links.

I think I saw your post (and lack of responses) in HATT. I was hoping for an alternative to chm - it works really well but it is terribly dated and can't be styled at all. Crazy that Microsoft recommends it but does nothing to develop it. Can't be a revenue stream, I guess.

I expect the recommendation will be WebHelp - which I intend to trial. Our developers like the single-file solution though.

Will also attempt to persuade them to trial help embedded in the GUI, Flare-style.

Andrew

[KevinDAmery]

Crazy that Microsoft recommends it but does nothing to develop it.

What's crazy is they've developed two help architectures since CHM (Help 2.0 and the User Assistance Platform) but in both cases at the last minute decided not to release them to outside developers.

[Andrew]

Crazy that Microsoft recommends it but does nothing to develop it.

What's crazy is they've developed two help architectures since CHM (Help 2.0 and the User Assistance Platform) but in both cases at the last minute decided not to release them to outside developers.

Yep, and they're on version 3 right now. Here's to hoping they don't scrap yet another help format.