Help.ShowHelp does not always work

[Darren]

We have found an odd situation. It appears to us as though
Help.ShowHelp does not always work, with the two biggest factors being
what chm file is called and if a FileDialog has been called before the
call to Help.ShowHelp.

As long as a call to Help.ShowHelp is made before completing a
FileDialog (OpenFileDialog or SaveFileDialog), it works fine – every
time. But if a FileDialog is completed before the first call to
Help.ShowHelp, the help call either doesn't work or it shows an
incomplete chm file. The results vary depending on the chm file that
is called.

We set up an isolated example where a form simply has an "open"
button, and then four buttons for help. The open button triggers an
OpenFileDialog and the selected file's name is just assigned to a
string. No file processing takes place.

The first help button calls:
Help.ShowHelp(this, "dda_help.chm"); //our compiled help file

The second help button calls:
Help.ShowHelp(this, "wkspf.chm"); //a Microsoft Works help file

The third help button calls:
Help.ShowHelp(this, "msinfo32.chm"); //a Microsoft Windows help
file

And the fourth help button calls:
Help.ShowHelp(this, "http://www.microsoft.com");


1) The only help button that always works is the fourth – the web page
call.

2) dda_help.chm and wkspf.chm behave identically… they work fine as
long as the first call to them is made before successfully completing
a FileDialog. If a FileDialog is completed first and then you try to
open dda_help.chm or wkspf.chm, the debugger will step right through
the Help.ShowHelp line with no errors and nothing happens.

3) msinfo32.chm behaves strangely. It opens regardless of a
FileDialog completion, but if the FileDialog is completed before the
first call to msinfo32.chm, the chm appears to be corrupt. There is
only one entry in the Table of Contents and the default page appears
to have changed.

Any info / insight on this? How can we get our help file to always
come up?

Thanks,
Darren

 

[Guest]

Use the System.Diagnostics.Process class as follows:

Dim startInfo As New Diagnostics.ProcessStartInfo()
With startInfo
. FileName = url
.WindowStyle = ProcessWindowStyle.Normal
End With
Dim hlpProc As System.Diagnostics.Process=System.Diagnostics.Process.Start(startInfo)

Read this article to see a similar strategy...http://www.codeproject.com/dotnet/helpintegrationindotnet.as

All the best

 

[Darren]

RESOLVED
--------

The current directory was being changed and we were using relative
paths to the chm file. Solved it with the following:

string chmLoc = Application.StartupPath + "\\" +
this.helpProvider1.HelpNamespace;
Help.ShowHelp(new Form(), chmLoc, HelpNavigator.Topic, e.URL);


Regards,
Darren