Question

How do I open Help (.chm) in a designated secondary window from a VB.net application?

Asked by: monacoassociates

I have a VB.net application.  For certain users, I want to restrict access to the Help file to a few designated pages.  In the Help app, I have created a secondary window called NewWin which does not display a table of contents, index or navigation buttons.  Now I want to evoke that window when I detect that the user who has logged in is a "rater."  The application will detect a rater and set the variable "raterlogin" to True.   I am attempting to evoke the secondary window by adding ">NewWin" to the HelpNamespace variable, however I find that when I log into the application as a rater and click a Help button (which activates the F1 key), the application hangs.  I am having trouble finding documentation on the HelpProvider object that tells me the correct way to designate a secondary window.  Can anyone help?

HelpProvider.HelpNamespace = My.Application.Info.DirectoryPath & "\Help\MASPro.chm"
        If raterLogin Then HelpProvider.HelpNamespace = My.Application.Info.DirectoryPath & "\Help\MASPro.chm>NewWin"
        HelpProvider.SetHelpNavigator(Me, HelpNavigator.TopicId)
        HelpProvider.SetHelpKeyword(Me, "149")

                                  
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Asked On
2009-01-07 at 13:40:29ID24033116
Tags

vb.net

,

Help

,

.chm

,

secondary window

Topic

Visual Studio

Participating Experts
1
Points
500
Comments
2

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Answers

 

by: help-infoPosted on 2009-01-08 at 11:44:13ID: 23329242

I'm very busy at this stage and cannot put together a running solution for you.
I think your call is not working with VB.net because of the ">NewWin" suffix. I'd try with HTMLHelp API calls. You may download some example code from my page at:
VB6 - http://www.help-info.de/en/Visual_Basic/vb.htm
VB2003 - http://www.help-info.de/en/Visual_Basic_net/vbnet.htm
VB2005 - http://www.help-info.de/en/Visual_Basic_2005/vb_2005.htm

What's about creating a second CHM file with your window definition? So you can call this second CHM file in your help directory when logged in as rater.

Don't hesitate posting again here.

Best regards
Ulrich Kulle
Microsoft MVP - Help

 

by: monacoassociatesPosted on 2009-01-08 at 13:03:56ID: 23330177

Thanks.  Compiling a second chm was a good solution to my problem.

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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