Index Source

HTML Help (.CHM)

MS Help 2 (.HxS) -- VS 2002/2003/2005/2008 Help

MS Help Viewer (.mshc) -- VS 2010, 2012

Can I change the fonts / CSS of the VS 2010 help?

I've changed the branding-en-US.css to match the look of vs2005 help as closely as possible when viewing in normal text size. This means reduced header size, smaller verdana font for text, courier new for code samples, background of code samples in light blue and other details. I thought I'd share this with others.

Download Updated CSS file: http://williamsedb.dk/downloads/branding-en-US.zip  (also attached to this post). My own notes here: http://williamsedb.dk/h3viewer/how-to-make-vs2010-help-look-like-vs2005-help.htm

1. Shut down LibraryManager if it's running.
2. Unzip branding-en-US.zip (downloaded above) to the same folder as dev10.mshc is in.
   (c:\program files\microsoft help viewer\v1.0\).
3. Open dev10.mshc with WinRar, WinZip or the like.
4. Replace the branding-en-US.css with the new one you just unzipped.
5. Close dev10.mshc.
6. Restart h3viewer.

If you use another language than English, you'll have to replace that stylesheet instead (eg. 'branding-de-DE.css' for German). The stylesheet will affect the way you see help in both HV1 and h3viewer, since h3viewer just uses the settings from HV1.

You do have an alternative: just choose another font in h3viewer, but that'll change the font for code samples as well, making them harder to read.

And here's what it looks like when the modified stylesheet is applied.

Help Viewer 1.x (VS 2010 help) does not yet officially support moving your local help library, however it’s easy to do (if you are comfortable tweaking the registry and editing files in the protected area of your hard disk… Which most developers are).

Moving the VS 2010 Help Library

1. Shutdown "Help Library Agent" tray application (right click the icon and select "Exit")
2. To find the current path of the help library store either:
• Run Help Library Manager (via “Help > Manager Help Settings” menu in VS 2010) and click "Choose online or local help".
• Or look at registry value "LocalStore=" in HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Help\V1.0\
• The default install path is %ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Microsoft\HelpLibrary\
3. Move the help library store to the new location.
4. Update the registry value "LocalStore=" in HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Help\V1.0\ with the new path.
5. Open <HelpLibraryPath>\manifest\queryManifest.??.xml in notepad and rename all occurrences of the old help path to the new path.

Resetting Help Library Content & Location

Note that you can blow away (delete) your Library content and at the same time set a new library location. Here's how to reset help:

1. Kill off Agent tray app and delete your current library folder (including all content under it). 
2. Now edit the file C:\Program Files\Microsoft Help Viewer\v1.0\HelpLibManager.exe.config 
   and set...<add key="FirstTimeRun" value="True" /> 
1. 
   

Next time you run Help Library Manager you will be prompted for a new library location (accept the default path or enter a new path). The new library will initially contain just Help On Help, which is automatically added to any new help catalog.

Copying a Library Between PCs

If you have several PCs and want to save bandwidth, you can use the information above to copy the entire library from one PC to another. To save further bandwidth, only allow one PC to receive help updates (using Help Library Manager) then when you want to, simply xcopy the updated library to the other PCs.

For both PCs with Identical Library paths (recommended):

1. Shutdown "Help Library Agent" tray application on both the source and target PCs.
2. Xcopy the Library folder (as we did above) to the correct location on the target PC.

If the source and target PCs have different Library paths (maybe XP and Win7?) you then need this additional step:

1. Carefully modify <HelpLibraryPath>\manifest\queryManifest.??.xml (as we did above) so that it contains the correct Library path (ie. Reflects the final location and not the original location).

Installing New Help Content

Run Help Library Manager (see VS 2010 Help menu) to install new help content.

If you have a VS 2010 installation DVD click "Install content from disk" and browser to the "\Product Documentation" folder on your VS install DVD. If you are using VS 2010 Express (and don't have a DVD) click "Install content from online".

Once installation has completed click "Check for updates online" to get the latest revisions of help.

VS Help Downloader: Downloader International Help

Alexandr Kozlenko (SDE, Lime Systems) wrote a nifty utility for downloading any locale version of Visual Studio 2010 help: http://vshelpdownloader.codeplex.com

Use H3Viewer to flip between your different language versions of help. H3Viewer also allows VS F1 help to display in the selected language.

Package This: Package Your Own MSDN Help

Only a small portion of MSDN Online is available as a download for VS 2010 local help. However another interesting CodePlex project called "PackageThis" allows you to package any part of MSDN (down to the topic level) to any form of Microsoft help file (.chm, .HxS or .mshc).

To use PackageThis:

1. Download PackageThis (VS Gallery has a VS 2010 help compatible version).
2. Run PackageThis.exe. After several seconds connecting to the server, the treeView will display a checked list of MSDN topics (it should look the same as the MSDN online TOC).
3. If required select a new locale and library from the main menu.
4. Use the treeView [+][-] keys to locate the MSDN section of interest (I find it handy to have MSDN online open in my web browser at the same time).
5. To check (and down) all topics in a section, right-click the treeView section of interest and choose "Select this node and all children". This will check and download the topic and all it's sub-topics. Then go have a cuppa while it all downloads. 
6. Repeat the last 2 steps if you want to include other sections.
7. Finally select "File > Export to Mshc File" to package all topics to a .msha help files, and create the .msha manifest file (used to install help). Don't use the Vendor name "Microsoft" as this has special meaning.
8. Run "File > Install Mshc Help File" to run Help Library Manager and install your new help. 

Note: You can use H3Viewer (free app) to view foreign language help (as VS 2010 Help Viewer v1.1 is locked to your installed locale).

See also: PackageThis Tour

Flip between Online and Offline Help without Help Library Manager

Help Library Manager is used to switch between Online and Offline help modes. HlpViewer.exe reads this setting to decide if offline mode is valid (but if first checks if Agent is running in memory).

Many people ask where the Online/Offline Mode is stored. 

It is stored in a UTF-8 XML file called HelpClient.cgf. If you are careful you can read/write to this file as well.

Writing Online/Offline Mode

In Help Viewer 1.1 Help Library Manager code writes the Online/Offline Mode setting to this file.

[csidl_localappdata]\Microsoft\HelpLibrary\HelpClient.cfg

Win7: c:\Users\<user>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\HelpLibrary\HelpClient.cfg

WinXP: C:\Documents and Settings\<user>\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\HelpLibrary\HelpClient.cfg

http://wiki.helpmvp.com/misc/h3/h3code/settingsprovider-cs

You can see the relevent read code for HlpViewer.exe here:

https://sites.google.com/a/helpmvp.com/wiki/misc/h3/h3code/mshelputils-cs

Details

Introduction

Package This Tour

PackageThis.exe can be found in the \PackageThisGui\bin\Debug folder of the downloaded zip file.

Unzip all files and run PackageThis.exe -- it takes a several seconds to connect to the server. 

Make sure MSDN Library is selected (if that's what you want to package).

Select the language you want to download:

I like to first find the MSDN section (or sections) I need using the browser. 

Here I'm interested in "Windows User Experience Interaction Guidelines".

In Package This, you can either manually check each required page,
or right+click a topic and choose "Select This Node and All Children...".

I've selected "Select This Node and All Children...". The download will take some time so go and have a coffee.

Finally your TOC branch items are now checked. The right side displays a log of pages downloaded. 
Before packaging make any final selections.

Now package the selected pages using the file menu. We want package to .mshc (VS 2010 Help).

Specify the .mshc help file name and package install info.

Product name and Book name will be displayed in Help Lib Manager when you install and uninstall.
Important: For Vendor name don't use "Microsoft" as from this has a special meaning (see debugging below).

Install the new help package using Help Library Manager.
PackageThis 1.3.2 (or greater) can launch Help Lib Manager from the File menu.

PackageThis allows you to override the default catalog (EG. For VS English the catalog name vs/100/en-us).

When Help Library Manager opens, find your book and select "Add" then click the "Update" button.

Important: You must first "uninstall" any old help first. Otherwise installation will appear to work OK but when you view help you will only see the old help.

Viewing Help

To view the help.... I'm going to use the Helpware H3Viewer (free app) to view VS 2010 Help.

All .mshc help created with PackageThis appears under a toc node called "Package This".

If you can view it then we are done!

Debugging

Not all installs go smoothly. Syntax errors in the help will result in an exception during installation.

To view the details of the error I use the Helpware tool mshcMigrate.exe (free app) to read the error. Or you can open Windows Event Viewer.

I got this error when I used a Vendor name = "Microsoft". Don't use this name as it expects a signed file.

An error occurred while updating local content: Microsoft.Help.CacheLib.CacheLibNonCabPackageFoundForMSFTException: Exception of type 'Microsoft.Help.CacheLib.CacheLibNonCabPackageFoundForMSFTException' was thrown.

....

Unfortunately MS Help Viewer 1.0 reports errors but not the name of the HTML file that contains the error.

So we must unzip the help file and use a XML syntax checker.

You can use the Helpware tool mshcMigrate.exe to syntax check the files.

On the second tab specify:
   a) the folder of files you want to check...
   b) the .mshc to zip the files to once checked.

Running Help Library Manager

If you have .mshc help package & HelpContent.Setup.msha manifest file (used to install) we use Help Library Manager to install help.

Note: For Help Viewer 1.0 the install manifest must have the name "HelpContentSetup.msha".

A quick side tour: 

Open HelpContentSetup.msha in notepad.

Here we see the installation instructions. Notice in the "package-list" section, you could add more packages. Feel free to edit this file.

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

<head />

<body class="vendor-book">

<div class="details">

  <span class="vendor">MSDN</span>

  <span class="locale">en-us</span>

  <span class="product">PackageThis_UXGuidelines</span>

  <span class="name">PackageThis_UXGuidelines</span>

</div>

<div class="package-list">

  <div class="package">

    <span class="name">UXGuidelines</span>

    <span class="deployed">true</span>

    <a class="current-link" href="UXGuidelines.mshc">UXGuidelines.mshc</a>

  </div>

</div>

</body>

</html>

 

Note: The .mshc help file is just a renamed ZIP file and contains all the topic HTML and images files.
  If you need to fix a bug in help you can rename to .zip and decompress this file (just like you can with 
  Word .docx files).

Installation Continued

Run Help Lib Manager as administrator.

Important notes:

• Always run HLM as Administrator when installing help (required for unsigned help).
• Always uninstall help before installing new help (if old and new have the same file\product\book name).

When Help Library Manager appears, select "Install content from disk".

Select your help manifest file and click Next

The rest of help install is as listed above.

Further Reading