• The configuration of the Code Block Component has been changed. As such, if you have added it to your projects to override the default configuration, you must remove it, add it again, and reconfigure it so that the configuration elements are up to date.

• Moved the various parts of the Post-Transform Component processing into the presentation style XSL transformations and the Code Block Component. The Post-Transform Component is now obsolete and, if you have added it to your project, it must be removed. Make a note of the configuration settings for the logo option if you are using it and transfer those values to the new transform component arguments on the Transform Component Arguments property page.

  Important
  Be sure to move your logo image file to an .\Icons subfolder in your project and set its BuildAction to Content so that it is included properly. See the transform component argument descriptions for more information.

• If you have created your own presentation style, it will no longer be picked up by the presentation style property. You will need to create a definition file for it. This was necessary to break the dependencies the help file builder had on the existing presentation styles and their names. See the Creating a Presentation Style Component topic and the related walkthrough on creating a custom presentation style for more information.

• The FindingTools build step was removed and its processing was moved to be part of the Initializing build step due to the need to locate framework and presentation style configuration files during initialization. If you have custom plug-ins that rely on the removed build step, you will need to update them accordingly.

• Fixed the SandcastleProject class so that it reuses existing MSBuild project instances if the project being loaded is already in the global collection. This prevents it from trying to unload a shared instance owned by MSBuild when disposed.

• Fixed issues with invalid characters in the vendor name project property.

• Fixed the MAML to Flow Document Converter so that it no longer locks image files that it adds to the preview documents which was preventing them from being updated in the project.

• Fixed the XML comments file search so that the local system language does not override the language defined in the project when searching for localized versions of the .NET Framework XML comments files.

• Fixed up comment colorizer rules for VB.NET, VBScript, and Python so that they do not add an extra line after end of line comments.

• Fixed the Code Block Component so that it doesn't match shorter region names in longer ones that start with the shorter name that occur before it.

• Fixed the IntelliSense Component so that it uses a case-insensitive comparer for the assembly names in the writer dictionary to prevent it from trying to create the same file twice when the names differ only by case.

• Fixed the Topic Previewer and Entity References windows so that they retain the help file builder project reference when a non-help file builder project is selected in the same solution.

• Updated the Help 2 build task to suppress all informational warnings and updated the MS Help Viewer build task to reduce the number of informational messages it produces. This significantly reduces both build time and log file size for projects with a large number of topics.

• Updated the Code Block Component to convert the lang attribute to language so that the XSL transformations work as expected (they use language throughout to determine the language).

• Moved the code element's title attribute handling to the presentation styles and greatly simplified the Code Block Component code which allows it to work without any knowledge of the document structure for any given presentation style.

• Updated all build components to include the topic key in warning and error messages when available. This provides more context when the BuildAssembler verbosity level is set to Warnings and Errors or Errors Only.

• Updated the build process so that it handles substitution tags in the HtmlHelpName property value. This allows insertion of other property values such as HelpFileVersion into the help filename value.

• Removed the Version Information Component as the version number information is now included by the presentation style XSL transformations.

• Removed the BrandingPackageName and SelfBranded project properties. Sandcastle presentation styles are either self-branded or not and cannot switch between the two states so exposing these properties no longer made sense.

• Added support for .winmd documentation sources. I'm not sure if this was worthwhile as a majority of the user written code in the assembly is marked as compiler generated and thus does not show up in the help file. I may need an option to include compiler generated code. We'll see how the feature is used and if it is an issue.

• Rewrote the standalone GUI's Project Properties window to use the property page user controls from the Visual Studio Package. This makes the property descriptions and usage consistent between the two.

• Added the StandardStyles.presentation configuration file which defines the standard Sandcastle presentation styles available for use. Support for 3rd party presentation styles is also available. See the Creating a Presentation Style Component topic for more information.

• Updated the build engine and project management tools to use the presentation style configuration files (standard and custom) for all presentation style related settings. The build engine no longer has any internal dependencies on the presentation styles or their names which will make adding new presentation styles much easier.

• Added a new TransformComponentArguments property to the project along with a corresponding property page. This allows editing the TransformComponent arguments defined in the presentation style configuration file (i.e. for logo support).

• Added support for the ignoreIfUnresolved element in the Assembly Binding Redirection plug-in.

• The Topic Previewer Window now supports the display of imported code blocks.

• Added the HTML Encode Selected Text command to the Visual Studio text editor's context menu when editing HTML, MAML topics, and other XML files. This allows you to HTML encode the selected text rather than doing it by hand.

• Added support for the conceptualLink XML comments TOC entry format in the Entity References tool window.

• Changed the default for the BuildAssembler Verbosity project property from All Messages to Only Warnings and Errors.

• Reduced the build log output when copying website files from all file names to just a file count as it progresses to reduce the volume of output on large help files.

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