Microsoft Help Viewer: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 23:56, 18 March 2019

Revision as of 13:09, 11 February 2020

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| genre = Help system

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'''Microsoft Help Viewer 1.x''' (HV) is the offline help system (local help) developed by [[Microsoft]] that ships with [[Microsoft Visual Studio|Visual Studio 2010]] and its associated [[MSDN Library]].

Microsoft Help Viewer 1.x supersedes [[Microsoft Help 2]] which is the help system used by [[Microsoft Visual Studio]] 2002/2003/2005/2008 and [[Office 2007]].

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* April 2010 - Microsoft Help Viewer 1.0 is RTM (Release to Manufacturing) as part of the Visual Studio 2010 release.

* March 2011 - Microsoft Help Viewer 1.1 ships with Service Pack 1 of Visual Studio 2010.

* 2012 - Microsoft Help Viewer 2.0 ships with Visual Studio 2012 and the Windows 8 OS.

==User Experience==

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Visual Studio 2010 includes a [[taskbar]] applet in the Windows notification area (system tray) that arbitrates between viewing offline help and online help in the browser when F1 is pressed, and resolves help topic [[URI]]s to the proper topic page. It also includes a "library manager" application to manage the download, installation and uninstallation of help topics on the system, as well as whether to prefer online help when connected to the Internet.

Microsoft Help Viewer 2.0 uses a COM runtime library, so the taskbar applet is no longer used. The format is unchanged.<ref>{{cite web |title=Help Viewer - MSHelpWiki |url=http://mshelpwiki.helpmvp.com/mshelp/help-viewer |website=mshelpwiki.helpmvp.com}}</ref> The runtime API is accessible via .NET dlls used in VS2012 and Windows 8.<ref>{{cite web |title=HV2 API Calls - Microsoft Help Viewer 2.0 |url=http://hv2.helpmvp.com/doc/api |website=helpware hv2}}</ref>

==File format==

Help files from Microsoft Help Viewer have a {{tt|.mshc}} file extension. They are ordinary [[Zip file]]s containing HTML documents. Special meta tags are provided for navigation, and there is support for signing the help bundle.<ref name=hv2>{{cite web |title=Help File Format - Microsoft Help Viewer 2.0 |url=http://hv2.helpmvp.com/doc/file-format |website=helpware hv2}}</ref>

==See also==

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==External links==

* [http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh580782(v=vs.110).aspx Microsoft Help Viewer 2.1 Help]

* [http://mshcmigrate.helpmvp.com/default MSHC tools from helpware]

[[Category:Online help]]