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Sandcastle Help File BuilderVersion 1.3.3.1

Version 1.3.3.1 was released on December 11th, 2006.

Changes in This Release
  • NOTE TO VERSION 1.3.3.0 RC USERS: You must reset the Post-transform Component configuration and reconfigure it before performing a build with this release due to changes in the configuration.
  • Updated for use with the December 2006 CTP. A patch file for the Sandcastle style and transformation files is supplied separately to fix missing support for br and hr tags in the Prototype style, to fixed numbered lists, and to add support for displaying the "Obsolete" messages on obsolete items. Extract the patch to your Sandcastle installation folder. See the ReadMe.txt file included with it for details on the fixes that I made.
  • Implemented a code block custom build component with the following features:
    • Syntax highlighting of code blocks in <code> tags. Languages supported: C#, VB.NET, C++, C, JavaScript, VBScript, J#, and XML.
    • Excess leading whitespace is stripped from the <code> blocks to left align them correctly.
    • Support for optional line numbering.
    • Support for optional collapsible regions for code in #region and #if/#else/#endif blocks with support for nested collapsible regions.
    • Support for reading in an external source file or a defined region of an external source file so that you can keep code samples in a buildable project to test for correctness and do away with managing the code samples in the XML comments and include files.
  • Implemented a post-transform custom build component with the following features:
    • Companion to the Code Block Component to add the supporting links for the colorizer script and style sheet.
    • It can insert a logo image at the top of each help topic.
    • For the Prototype style, it hides the language combo box if only one language appears in the Syntax section.
    • Version information will be added to the help topics if used with the help file builder. If used outside the help file builder, a modification is required to the Sandcastle reference content files.
  • Added support for the XML comments <exclude/> tag.
  • Added the locale attribute to the ResolveReferenceLinksComponent in sandcastle.config to use the project language for the MSDN URLs. Note that there is a small bug in the component that causes the first reference to still point to the English site. This bug has been reported and will hopefully be fixed in the next Sandcastle CTP.
  • The build components are configured individually via the new project option ComponentConfigurations. Additional third party build components can be plugged into the help file builder by adding the default configuration to the sandcastle.config template with a unique ID attribute and implementing a public static ConfigureComponent method in the component. See the help file for more details.
  • Added a SyntaxFilters property that lets you specify which languages appear in the Syntax section of the help topics and, for the Prototype presentation style, the dropdown in the upper right of the topics. It can be set to CSharp, VisualBasic, CPlusPlus, JSharp, a combination of those values, All to include them all, Standard (the default) for C#, VB.NET, and C++ only, or to None to remove the Syntax section entirely.
  • Added the CppCommentsFixup project property to work around an issue with methods that take generics as parameters in XML comments files created by the C++ compiler (it doesn't match the other .NET compilers' naming conventions).
  • The FrameworkVersion property is now always saved in the project to prevent building against the wrong version when a project is edited on two different systems, one with a more recent version of .NET than another. It also defaults to .NET 2.0 for new projects rather than the most recent framework version on the system which may be .NET 3.0 to prevent unexpected problems. If you need .NET 3.0, you must select it manually.
  • The HelpTitle property is now displayed in the help topics at the top of the page where "Reference Library" used to be.
  • The ObsoleteAttribute, FlagsAttribute, and SerializableAttribute are now always included even if DocumentAttributes is set to false. These provide useful information and should not be filtered out.
  • The Preview and Arrange dialog for additional content no longer prompts for the project folder as it is maintained internally now.
  • Code in <pre> tags in additional content HTML files can be colorized by adding the colorizer attributes to them. See the Syntax Highlighting <pre> Tag Content topic for details.
  • Modified the tool search to also try to find Sandcastle via the DXROOT environment variable.
See Also