Popup topics section settings:

Text-only popups:

This activates HTML Help's native popup mode. You cannot use formatted text (bold, italics etc.), images, hyperlinks, tables or any other non-text features. When this mode is activated hyperlinks to popup topics in your help will display as popups automatically.

HTML Help's text-only popups are stored in an internal text file in the output .CHM help file. By default this file is called CSHelp.txt. You can change this here but since this is the default name of this file you should only change it if the programmer specifically asks you to.

This mode can be used for context-sensitive popups called from applications. The calls are made to the plain text file inside the .CHM file using the HTML Help API.

HTML-encoded topics:

Selecting this option effectively turns your popups into normal topics without headers. When this mode is activated links to popup topics will display the topics in the main help viewer.

This mode cannot be used for context-sensitive popups called from applications.

Dual-mode help:

This mode outputs popup topics to an external Winhelp .HLP file. This allows you to use formatted text (bold, italics etc.), images, Internet links and tables in your popups. When this mode is activated, hyperlinks to popup topics in your help will display as popups automatically.

Important notes:

This mode can be used for context-sensitive popups called from applications. The calls are made directly to the separate Winhelp .HLP file using the Winhelp API.

JavaScript popups:

This mode outputs popup topics using JavaScript code that allows you to use  formatted text (bold, italics etc.), images, Internet and topic hyperlinks, tables (with gridlines and borders) and even video files in your popups.

The popups are stored inside the main .CHM help file so you only need to distribute one file with your application.

This mode cannot be used for context-sensitive popups called from applications. If you want to use both JavaScript popups and context-sensitive popups called from your application you must create a separate project for your context popups. See Formatted context popups in HTML Help for details.

Click/mouseover:

Displays the popup on user click or mouseover (i.e. as soon as the user moves the mouse pointer over the link). Be careful with using the mouseover option as many users find this intrusive and it may also trigger popup blockers in some browsers.

Minimum width:

Setting this to 0 makes the popup width automatic, on the basis of the amount of text and/or other content.

Setting it to any other value (in pixels) explicitly defines the width of the popup. If the popup only contains text it will have the width you specify. If it contains other content (graphics, videos) it will be at least as wide as the specified width and wider if required by the content.

Border width:

Enter 0 for no border, any value above 0 (in pixels) to draw a border around the popup box.

Border padding:

The distance between the popup content and the border or edge of the popup (if there is no border) in pixels.

Background:

The background color of the popup box.

Border color:

The color of the border, if there is one.

Visual effects:

These effects are only supported by MS Internet Explorer. This means that they are available in HTML Help (which uses MSIE) and in Browser-based Help when the user is using Internet Explorer. They are ignored by all other browsers.

These effects are easier to see than to describe. Experiment! (Note that the transition effects are only for opening the popup box. The popups always close in the same way, no matter what effect you select.)