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Sandcastle Help File BuilderVersion 1.9.3.3 (Beta 1)

Version 1.9.3.3 was released on January 3rd, 2012.

The primary purpose of this release is to move the Visual Studio Integration Package into a beta stage so that more people can start using it and to test and get feedback on the new file editors. The build engine and the package in general are quite stable and are suitable for general use. As before, if there are issues you can drop back to the last stable release as there have been no changes that would affect the project file format. However, some support for newer features such as Portable Framework and Silverlight 5 support are not available in the prior stable release.

For more information on the updated entity references window and file editors, see the following topics:

Changes in This Release
  • Removed the condition in the build engine that only ran the 32-bit MSBuild.exe for Silverlight 4.0 or earlier. It now runs it unconditionally for all Silverlight versions including the new 5.0 release.

  • Fixed the help file builder project launcher tool so that it does not fail to open the project when it is opened from a path with a space in one of the folder names.

  • Updated the CachedCopyFromIndexComponent and CachedResolveReferenceLinksComponent to open the cache files for shared read access to allow for concurrent builds.

  • Fixed the checked state optimization in the API filter dialog to handle a couple of odd edge cases.

  • Fixed the output deployment plug-in so that it ignores the help format if no location is defined for it.

  • Fixed a bug in the project class that was causing duplicate files and folders to be added to the project under certain conditions.

  • Fixed adding of file references in the VSPackage so that the hint path is retained.

  • Added support for dragging and dropping files from Windows Explorer into the Visual Studio Solution Explorer. Dropping files on the Documentation Sources node will add the appropriate files as documentation sources. Dropping files on the References node will add the appropriate files as reference assemblies. All other file types dropped on the project nodes will be added as normal project files.

  • Reworked the standalone GUI's Entity Reference Window to use a new WPF entity references user control so that it is consistent with the VSPackage in features and functionality. The new user control allows selection of the link type used for drag and drop/copy and paste operations into topic files. This replaces the popup menus that used to appear when dropping links in topics.

    In addition, it also supports table of contents entities (the merged results of all content layout and site map files in the project). The link drag and drop feature is a better fit here now as the content layout and site map editors have been promoted to full document windows from the tool window style used in earlier releases. The Entity References tool window will take into account all open file editors within the environment when refreshed so as to always show the current token and table of contents entity information.

  • Added the Entity References tool window to the VSPackage. The tool window tracks the active help file builder project and reloads its content to match when needed. The Refresh button can reload the selected entity types as well if necessary to display current values including those from unsaved token and content layout files open in the environment.

  • Reworked the standalone GUI's token file editor window to use a new WPF token file editor user control so that it is consistent with the VSPackage in features and functionality. The new user control allows searching for tokens.

  • Added the token file editor to the VSPackage.

  • Reworked the standalone GUI's resource item editor window to use a new WPF resource item editor user control so that it is consistent with the VSPackage in features and functionality. The new user control allows searching for items and limiting the list to just those items with changes.

  • Added the resource item editor to the VSPackage.

  • Reworked the standalone GUI's content layout editor window to use a new WPF content layout editor user control so that it is consistent with the VSPackage in features and functionality. The new user control provides a much more user-friendly editing experience and has an improved search option.

  • Added the content layout file editor to the VSPackage.

  • Reworked the standalone GUI's site map editor window to use a new WPF site map editor user control so that it is consistent with the VSPackage in features and functionality. The new user control provides a much more user-friendly editing experience and has an improved search option.

  • Added the site map file editor to the VSPackage.

  • Added support for the allowMissingSource attribute on code XML comments elements to allow local overrides of the global "missing source" build component option when set to true. If omitted or set to false, the default, it inherits the global setting's value.

See Also