This version contains the first alpha release of the Visual Studio 2010 extension package that allows you to create, manage, and build help file builder projects completely from within Visual Studio. In this first release, most of the common project management features have been implemented but support for several of the custom file type editors and tool windows is still not done (editors for content layout files, token files, resource item files, and site map files, the entity references tool window, preview topic tool window, and creation of new projects from other file formats). These features will be added in future releases.

While the extension package is under development, the standalone GUI and core build engine will retain the current version number of the latest production release that does not contain the extension package (v1.9.3.0 as of this release). This will ensure that third-party plug-ins and other components will continue to work with both the release build and the alpha builds without the third-party component vendors having to provide versions specific to the production and alpha release versions. Apart from a few minor changes and internal refactoring, the standalone GUI and core build engine are identical in functionality to the current release build.

Project files created with either release are compatible with one another. In the event of issues with the alpha release, you can fall back to the latest production release without any issues. See the Visual Studio Integration Package for more information.

Neither of these changes should cause any side effects but they are something to be aware of.

• The Microsoft.Common.targets file is now imported in the SandcastleHelpFileBuilder.targets file. This is required as the Managed Package Framework used in the Visual Studio extension package expects access to some of the common targets.

• In order to prevent the common targets from setting the OutDir property to the help file builder's OutputPath property value, a default OutDir value is defined in the SandcastleHelpFileBuilder.targets file (.\). SHFB will ignore this default value if it sees it. An override value specified on the command line will still take precedence.

• Fixed a bug in the BuildHelp task that was causing some command line property overrides to be missed when building a project from the command line. This fix is also available in the refresh of the v1.9.3.0 release.

• Fixed a bug that caused the reflection file to be renamed incorrectly if it contained a UNC path with .org as part of one of the path elements. This fix is also available in the refresh of the v1.9.3.0 release.

• Images added to a project now use a default BuildAction of Image rather than Content. Since the additional content model has been deprecated in favor of MAML, this is the more appropriate choice. This change is also available in the refresh of the v1.9.3.0 release.

• Added a simple file system watcher that watches for changed files and prompts to reload any that are open in the standalone GUI when it regains control. It will not do anything more than watch for changed files. It will not handle deletes, moves, renames, etc. This was implemented to facilitate editing files in the standalone GUI with the project open in Visual Studio until the extension package contains all of the required file editors. This change is also available in the refresh of the v1.9.3.0 release.

• The BuildHelp and CleanHelp MSBuild tasks now log all messages with an importance of High so that they appear in the Visual Studio output window when the logging options are set to Minimal. Note that this does not apply when built from within a pre-build or post-build task. In those cases, the output is only shown after the commands complete due to a change in the way Visual Studio 2010 handles project build task output.

• The BuildHelp MSBuild task is now cancelable. Note that if canceled while BuildAssembler is initializing that it may take 10-20 seconds for MSBuild to stop.

• Made various internal changes to the build engine to allow it to work when called from within Visual Studio.

• Moved the IndentHtml property to the Build category since it is a better fit there.

• Renamed the Comments property category Summaries to better match its purpose.

• Added the SHFB Project Launcher tool that lets you choose how help file builder projects are opened. This is the default application associated with the .shfbproj file extension now. If you have the extension package installed and open a help file builder project from Windows Explorer, it will ask you for your preferred method of opening the project. You can choose to always use the selected application or let it prompt you each time a project is opened that way. You can run the application from the help file builder's Start menu folder to change your default preference.

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