I have a vb.net project running as a toolbar extension in ArcMap. Each one of my tools opens a modal dialog using the .ShowDialog() method. My client wants to be able to open a PDF document from the tools that will serve as the help documentation tool rather than a traditional method like HTMLHelp or Windows Help Viewer.
So, I've imported the Interop.AcroPDFLib.dll and set up a form with an AxAcroPDF (veiwer) object on it. Whenever the user clicks the help button on any of the tool dialogs, the help form opens using .Show() and goes to the associated page in the document using the .setCurrentPage method. Everything works great up to this point.
However, as you can imagine, because the tool dialog is modal, it blocks the user from being able to interact with the PDF form. So, what I need is a technique to prevent this block so that the user will be able to scroll pages, click links within the PDF, etc. while the tool dialog is open. I.e., I need a solution that will mimic using the traditional HTMLHelp veiwer.
I've tried opening the PDF form in a new thread, but that causes ArcMap to crash at Application.Run(New PDFForm). Maybe this is because I have very little experience with multithreading, or maybe because ArcMap does not support multithreading. Not sure.
Anyway, any suggestions to get me started would be greatly appreaciated.
