Note

The additional content model of adding extra content to a help file has been deprecated. While it will continue to be supported and will not be removed, it will not receive any more features or updates. Going forward, conceptual content is the preferred method of adding non-reference content to the help file. The additional content feature can still be used to override stock content and add supporting files to the help file.

• Code samples in <pre> elements can be colorized.

• Code samples can be imported using the <code> element and specifying the custom source attribute.

• For finer control over the layout of the table of contents entries for the additional content, a site map file can be defined. This allows you to create a table of contents structure that differs from the physical folder layout of the additional content items. One or more site map files can be specified by adding them to the project and setting their BuildAction to SiteMap. The SortOrder property on each site map file item can be used to specify the order in which the content from the site maps is merged into the table of contents. Site map files are also editable from within the help file builder's GUI.

• When no content site map file is specified, all HTML files (*.htm and *.html) and transformable topic files (*.topic, see below) are automatically added to the table of contents unless their ExcludeFromToc property is set to True. Subfolders below the source folder containing HTML files automatically create folder entries in the table of contents. As such, it is fairly simple to create a hierarchy of entries in the help file table of contents based on the folder structure of the additional content items.

• Files with a .topic extension will be processed using an XSL transformation to convert them to HTML files. If a file is found in the project that has a BuildAction of TopicTransform, that file will be used as the XSL transformation. If no such files exist in the project, a default transform based on the currently selected presentation style will be used instead. See the Topic File Transformation topic for more information.

• The help file builder scans each HTML file for some special comment tags. The comment tags can be used to indicate the default topic, exclude a file from the table of contents, and set the sort order of items within the table of contents group.

• The help file builder will also scan the HTML files for XML comment style <see> tags and will replace them with links to the appropriate help file content (i.e. methods, properties, etc).

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