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I have created a .NET C# component that I am going to sell as a developers tool. My question is, how do I add my own custom context help to the methods and properties.

So, when I press F1 over a method I want it to go to a specific web page. Is this even possible?

Andy
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4 Answers4

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Use the Visual Studio SDK and the help integration kit Part of the Visual Studio SDK is the Help Integration project type. Information about integrating with help here (MSDN). Same applies for VS 2005 and 2008.

Here's a link to the download, for earlier versions of VS (before '05).

There's an entire development center about the Visual Studio SDK.

The effort feels a lot higher than shipping a .Chm and/or IntelliSense files, but I understand you'd like to add examples, etc.

Consider if it's worth the effort Are you providing enough information in the IntelliSense documentation files (.xml) for all of your component's assemblies?

More often than not, that's sufficient to provide a lot of information, including additional remarks, notes, etc.

I may just be biased to my development workflow and that of my co-workers, but I can't remember the last time that I saw anyone press "F1" in Visual Studio.

Plus, if you really ever do want a full-blown .Chm help file, your XML documentation comments can be turned into that with little effort thanks to tools like Sandcastle and formerly NDoc.

Jeff Wilcox
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  • Thanks for the comment. I have already created the XML documentation for all the methods. The issue is I don't want to bloat it with complex examples. Keeping these separate with the online documentation. I also don't want a local .CHM type file. I thought perhaps it was easy to override the F1 hook to redirect it to a page. Can you add URL links into the XML documentation? So they can be clicked on directly from your code? – Andy Aug 06 '09 at 13:49
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Aside from the traditional F1 help, I find that Sandcastle created CHM files are extremely helpful when deploying any reusable libraries and frameworks. GhostDoc has proven quite useful for creating the in-code XML needed for Sandcastle CHM files. Sandcastle also has the option of creating MSDN-style HTML help files as well as the tried-and-true CHM.

AJ.
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Context help is generated via the XML documentation in your code.

If you're unfamiliar with it, in C#.NET you can document a function by typing three successive forward-slashes before the method signature:

/// <summary>
/// What Foo() does...
/// </summary>
/// <param name="bar">What bar is...</param>
/// <returns>What the return int is...</returns>
public int Foo(string bar)
{
    // Does something...
}

In VB.NET, I believe it's three apostrophes.

Nick Gotch
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Assuming you're familiar with using xml comments to create the xml intellisense file and can use sandcastle to generate .chm files separately then the missing piece is F1 integration.

This article is ancient but indicates how to do it with VS 6.0 era help

The comments there direct you to the 2003 integration kit

Beyond that you seem to have to download the actual VS SDK.

This page seems pretty up to date (it has info on changes in 2010)

ShuggyCoUk
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