• The Sandcastle Help File Builder GUI and build engine are now built with .NET 4.0 and use MSBuild 4.0. As such, you will need to update any build scripts that call MSBuild.exe to use the .NET 4.0 version of MSBuild. The Sandcastle build components and the code colorizer library still target .NET 3.5 as they are loaded and used by the Sandcastle tools which are still built using .NET 2.0.

  Note
  Even though it is built with .NET 4.0, the Sandcastle Help File Builder can still build help files for any assembly that targets any version of .NET from version 1.1 to 4.0 and can use solution and project files as documentation sources from Visual Studio 2005, 2008, or 2010.

• Fixed bug that caused an exception if at least one version of the Silverlight Framework was not installed.

• Fixed the platform path passed to MRefBuilder so that it correctly generates member IDs for .NET 4.0 assemblies. The incorrect path in prior versions was causing member IDs to be generated incorrectly which caused missing documentation issues.

• Fixed a bug in PostTranformComponent that caused an exception when trying to place the logo if no syntax filters where defined. However, be aware that turning off all syntax filters will cause several API member elements to be omitted as they are rendered as part of the syntax section by the Sandcastle XSL transformation (parameters, type parameters, returns, etc.).

• Fixed a bug in ShowMissingComponent that caused it to miss the auto-documented comments on the Member List page when the constructor was overloaded.

• The build engine will now locate the .NET 4.0 Framework, F# core, and Silverlight Framework XML comments files and include them where needed to provide comments for base class members.

• Updated the FrameworkVersion project property to allow selection of any installed .NET Framework version or Silverlight Framework version. This allows for the proper documentation of Silverlight projects using assemblies and XML comments files specific to that framework.

  Note

  Because Silverlight projects use an entirely different framework, it is not possible to build a help project containing assemblies and/or Visual Studio projects that target both the Silverlight framework and the normal .NET Framework. Each must be built in their own separate help project. You can use the Version Builder plug-in to merge the information from both projects into one help file if necessary.

• For Silverlight projects where the assemblies are added directly as documentation sources rather than their Visual Studio project, the build engine will now automatically include all known Silverlight Framework assemblies as references. This frees you from having to manually add the Silverlight Framework assemblies as references. However, a large number of references will be added, many of which are not needed. If you have a choice, using the Visual Studio solution or project file as the documentation source is preferred as it will only include the required reference assemblies.

• Added the Wildcard References Plug-In that can be used to add all assemblies found in a given folder and its sub-folders as references to use when generating reflection information with the MRefBuilder tool.

• Added the DisableCodeBlockComponent project property to allow removal of the custom Code Block Component so that the <code> elements are rendered in their default format by the Sandcastle XSL transformations. This was requested by some Microsoft users so that their help topics generated by the help file builder can be transformed and used as MSDN content.

• By default, the GUI will now save the project window state per user for each project. When re-opened, the project window state is restored. Window state is saved to a file in the project folder using the same name as the project file with a "_[USERNAME]" suffix. This option can be turned off in the User Preferences dialog.

• Thanks to euphory for providing additional translations in the Japanese shared builder content resource item file.

Other Resources