More Advanced Procedures > Using Context-Sensitive Help > Context calls to Browser-based Help

In this topic:

How to make calls to Browser-based Help topics

You can create context-sensitive calls to Browser-based Help (web HTML) from your application or web pages with normal URLs using the syntax explained below. These calls can be made locally, across networks or across the Internet.

However, note that you cannot use context popups on their own as you would in Winhelp or HTML Help, because these popups are a Microsoft technology that is an integral part of the HTML Help and Winhelp help viewers. The JavaScript popups supported in Browser-based Help can only be used within your help, you cannot make calls to them from your application or web pages.

How to make calls to Browser-based Help topics:

Calls to Browser-based Help must be normal HTML calls, made in the same way as any other URL link that opens a browser with a specific web location or local HTML file, using exactly the same syntax:

Syntax:

index.html?topicname.htm#anchorname

•	Note that Help & Manual 4 uses the standard # character to separate the topic file name and the anchor name in links to anchors (sometimes also known as bookmarks). This is different from Help & Manual 3's Browser-based HTML output, where a comma was required!

Examples:

This example uses the standard file names and extensions and accesses an anchor in the referenced topic:

index.html?introduction.htm#gettingstarted

The following example shows a call to a project that was compiled with both a non-standard index file name (see Compile Help File) and a non-standard extension for the topic files (see below). There is no reference to an anchor in this example.

help.html?new_features.html

Elements of the calls:

index.html

This is the name of the index file of your Browser-based Help (this is the default, it can be changed in the Compile Help File dialog when you compile). If you use this on its own it will simply display the help system with the standard home topic.

?topicname.htm

This is the name of the topic you want to display. This is created by combining the topic ID with the extension .htm.

This is the default topic extension, you can change it in Project > Project Properties > Browser-based Help > HTML Export Options. (These settings are shared with the other HTML-based output formats and can also be accessed in the HTML Help and Visual Studio Help sections.)

#anchorname

(optional) This is the name of an anchor in the topic that you want to jump to. Note that the standard # character is now used as the separator instead of the comma required in Help & Manual 3!

Direct calls to the topic.htm file:

Theoretically you don't actually need to include the index.html file in the call – if you make a direct call with the format topicname.htm or topicname.htm#anchorname this will automatically display the entire help system with the Table of Contents.

This is not a good idea, however: Under some circumstances it can confuse the browser history, making it impossible for users to navigate with the Back and Next buttons. (This applies in particular when you have different Browser-based Help projects in different directories with links between them. See Multiple browser-based projects for more details on this.)

It is thus always advisable to use the full call including the index file, using the standard syntax:

index.html?introduction.htm#gettingstarted