More Advanced Procedures > Using Context-Sensitive Help > Formatted context popups in HTML Help

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Dual-mode help with Winhelp popups in HTML Help

Combining dual-mode context popups with JS popups

HTML Help popups are plain-text only, they do not support graphics or formatted text like the popups in Winhelp. If you want formatted popups Help & Manual can solve this problem for you by creating "dual-mode" help for HTML Help, with a .CHM file for the main help and a .HLP Winhelp file for the popups. (Microsoft also uses this method in the help of a number of their own applications.)

•	Help & Manual 4's new JavaScript popups cannot be used for context-sensitive help because they cannot be called directly from applications. They can only be called from links within your help.

NEWS: Winhelp is no longer supported in Windows Vista!

Please note that support for the Winhelp format has been completely discontinued in Microsoft Windows Vista. Even if your applications run under Vista, any calls to Winhelp help will simply produce an error message. This also applies to dual-mode popups in HTML Help. We thus strongly recommend that you start transitioning to an alternative help format as soon as possible. See here for details

How to generate dual-mode help with Winhelp popups in HTML Help:

1.	Go to Project > Project Properties > HTML Help > Popup Topics and select Create a dual-mode help file.

2.	The default name for the .HLP file that will be generated for the popups is default_popup.hlp – you can change this if you want.

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Everything else is handled by Help & Manual. An additional .HLP file containing your popups will now be generated automatically when you compile your HTML Help output. This file must be distributed with your application and it is the file the programmer must link to when programming context-sensitive help. The calls to this file must use the Winhelp API, of course, not the HTML Help API!

•	Remember that you cannot use links in popups in dual-mode help. Links between .HLP and .CHM files are not supported.

What's wrong? The .HLP popup file isn't getting generated!?

Due to an uncorrected bug in the Winhelp compiler you must have a minimum number of popup topics in your Invisible Topics section for dual-mode help to work. If your .HLP file is not getting generated when you compile just add two or three empty dummy popup topics to your Invisible Topics section.

How to use dual-mode context popups and JavaScript popups:

Help & Manual's new JavaScript popups cannot be used for context help because they cannot be called from applications. If JavaScript popups are activated in your project you cannot generate a dual-mode .HLP file for your popups from the same project. The simplest solution for this problem is to use dual-mode popups instead of JavaScript popups. Then you can have formatted popups both in your help and in the context-sensitive popups called from your application.

However, if you want to use the features of JavaScript popups in your help file and have formatted context popups you can do this by creating a separate Winhelp project for your context popups:

1.	Configure JavaScript popups and use them for the popups in your help topics.

2.	Create a separate Help & Manual project for your context popup topics.

3.	In this project do not create any topics in the Table of Contents section (TOC). Create all your popup topics in the Invisible Topics section.

4.	Compile this project directly as Winhelp. This will generate a Winhelp .HLP file containing only your formatted popup topics.

5.	Distribute this .HLP file together with your HTML Help .CHM file. All context popup calls from your application must be made to the .HLP file using the Winhelp API. (The JavaScript popups are stored in the .CHM so you still only need to distribute two files.)