Is there a library / api for reading the contents of a .hlp help file?

Question

I have a help file for my program and was asked to add a description of the menus in a toolbar as the user browses them. So I thought I could just use the beginning of the menu's description of the help but just cant find how to access the contents of it.

I saw WinHelp has a macro language, so I figured maybe through this, but I couldnt find any references on this around.

Anybody now some pointers or examples of hot to do this?

Answer 1

the winhelpcgi utility contains library code that can read .hlp files. The source is here: link

I haven't used it so I can't vouch for its usage.

Answer 2

First, your help system should have an Index on each topic that permits you to open help and have that topic appear (if not, then check out Help & Manual - it'll help you build more complete help files). However, this doesn't directly solve your problem since, as I understand it, you want this to pop up in a toolhelp Window.

Thus, you'll need to go under the surface and figure out how the Help system uses the key to pull the appropriate information. However, it is not a trivial undertaking (as far as I can tell) to directly access a specific, indexed chunk of text in a WinHelp file. You may find some information here that is of use. You might also want to browse the forums on the Help and Manual web site.

Here's a bigger question though: does it really make sense to pop up an entire help topic (even if short) when a user just hovers over a menu item or button? It doesn't to me and I spent years in a UI design group at Bell Labs. It is A) simply too much information and B) going to be visually distracting (and thus incredibly irritating) to experienced users. The accepted practice here is to pop up a toolhelp window with a very short (1-4 words) descriptor of the button ("Open" or "Open File").

If you want the help to be available for each menu item or button, I would suggest one of two alternatives.

First, consider having a "Help Cursor mode" where the cursor uses the help icon (an arrow with a question mark). The user accesses it via a Help button on the button bar. When in Help Cursor mode, a user click on any item will take them to the help topic for that item. I'm kind of lukewarm to this approach since it is modal but I've certainly seen it done.

Second, you might simply beef up your help system a bit. That is, create a topic in your Help system that features a screen shot of your application. On this screenshot, create hot spots for each menu item and/or button and permit the user to go to the appropriate topic by clicking on it. Done right, this gives the user a visual key to the topics they wish to learn about without interfering with the normal operation of your program.

Most importantly: before doing all of the work necessary to implement your current plan, be sure it is the right plan!