Sandcastle Help File Builder Tutorial

Setting up TFS build for Sandcastle Help File Builder.

Sandcastle help file builder tutorial. Within the Sandcastle Help File Builder, select Project -> New Project from Visual Studio Project. I've used the SandCastle Help File Builder to execute against my solution file. The most effective way to document .NET code so that others can.

To proceed with the documentation we will also need to create an XML file for the project. It can also generate a single help file from multiple. Files must appear in the content layout file in order to be compiled into the help file.

The Sandcastle Help File Builder was created to fill in the gaps, provide the missing NDoc-like features that are used most often, and provide standalone GUI and command line based tools to build a help file in an automated fashion. -Define the Help file Format within the HelpFileFormat Property in the Project Properties Window within SHFB. Help+Manual actually performs similar tasks to Help File Builder, so it replaces its role in interaction with Sandcastle.

If you are going to build a help file using Sandcastle alone, see the topics in the Conceptual Content File Types section. It works really well and you can document any number of assemblies within a Sandcastle Help File Builder project. Sandcastle is a tool developed by Microsoft which builds MSDN-style help files by using reflection and XML comments from the source code of a project.

- The guided installer has a step that will install the Sandcastle Help File Builder for you, so you don’t have to download that yourself. Within the Sandcastle Help File Builder select Project -> New Project from Visual Studio Project… – Open the .sln from which you built your XML Documentation in the previous step (VS Setup). API reference topics are created by combining the XML comments that are embedded in your source code with the syntax and structure of the types which is acquired by reflecting against the associated .NET Framework assemblies.

Creating the actual topic files is just a matter of entering the content using a text editor. I don’t want to reinvent the whell therefore, I forward you to some other sites. C> output the file.

Sandcastle Help File Builder Open the Sandcastle Help File Builder (SHFB) from your Start -> Program Files. Ignore the properties window for now and right click on the Documentation Sources node in the Project Explorer. · Hi zvin, Along with Eric and Ulrich's suggestions, please take a look at these two.

Understand it and use it, is to use XML Documentation and SandCastle. A .NET Programmer's Guide to Documenting. C> c> " c> c> Documenting Code in the App_Code Folder c>.

Out of the box, Sandcastle is command line driven and kind of a pain to deal with, so I highly recommend the very easy to use Sandcastle Help File Builder (SHFB) application also hosted on CodePlex. Microsoft is no longer releasing new versions of Sandcastle (but that doesn't prevent it from working just fine). When executing the example included within the CTP, in the output folder there is a subfolder called HTML.

Instead, images are managed as project file items and the media content file is created for you automatically at build. Is there any tutorial available how to properly set up the Sandcastle Help File Builder to generate the documentation for Unity3D Projects?. This guide aims to remedy that.

In this post I will describe the steps needed to setup TFS build that will generate documentation and drop it the output directory. Michael Sorens produces the easy guide to the process that. Then you take "Sandcastle Help File Builder" and c> build a nice website documentation with it.

With the integrated XML-comments. The Sandcastle Help File Builder was created to fill in the gaps, provide the missing NDoc-like features that are used most often, and provide standalone GUI and command line based tools to build a help file in an automated fashion. These can be customized according to your needs.

The Sandcastle tools are used to create help files for managed class libraries containing both conceptual and API reference topics. It is a blogging platform with the idea of sharing thoughts, experiences, opinion, satires, analysis, travel experiences, adventures and so on. A basic HTML reference for Help authors.

Shown above is the help file builder's main form. Enter the path to SandcastleBuilderGUI.exe for your system and enter something like "Sandcastle Help File Builder" for the friendly name. I can vouch for Sandcastle Help File Builder.

I'm using the Sandcastle Help File Builder GUI, Sandcastle 07 Oct TCP and (managed) C++ in VS08. Please note that you cannot use the independent Sandcastle Help File Builder system or its configuration. The end-user license agreement (EULA) is part of the HTML Help.

This was necessary to facilitate some of the other changes. The Sandcastle Styles package is a collection of patches to the core Sandcastle’s presentation component. The Sandcastle tools and the help compilers are not part of the help file builder and must be downloaded and installed separately.

If you don’t install it you may get either poor or even faulty rendering of your output, possibly without realizing it. Next use the Project Explorer to add the assembly of the application you are documenting;. Look at the below snippet which will help you to create a new project.

The most common release is 14.5.31.0, with over 98% of all installations currently using this version. Click Add to add a new program to the list. Start by opening the Sandcastle Help File Builder and create a new project using any suitable name, e.g.

A Visual Studio integration package is also available for it so that help projects can be created and managed. Sandcastle Help File Builder. Once done, the Project Explorer Window and the Project Properties Window will be opened for you.

It can produce an HTML 1.x (.CHM) file, an HTML 2.x (HxS) file, or a website. See the Sandcastle MAML Guide for details on Microsoft Assistance Markup Language (MAML) which is used to create these topics. See the Sandcastle Help File Builder .3.6.0 Release Notes for details on all of the changes made to the Sandcastle Help File Builder and tools.

The help file builder is written by Eric Woodruff and consists of a GUI and a project build system that act as front ends to the Sandcastle tools and help compilers produced by Microsoft. The solution has xml comments and I get no errors at all. In addition, it lets you manage various files associated with the help project.

Select or create the new folder where you want to generate new help document. The actual Sandcastle Help File Builder installation is launched as a separate installer-- be sure to do this!. Help for the HTML Help Viewer (Viewhlp.chm) A redistributable set of topics that provide help for the HTML Help viewer.

A Visual Studio integration package is also available for it so that help projects can be created and managed. In theory, you could have a Builder project and generate a doc for each C# project and then have a master Builder project which documents everything. Sandcastle Help File Builder is a software program developed by EWSoftware.

The Sandcastle Help File Builder standalone GUI provides an environment in which you can edit the properties that control the features and appearance of the compiled help file. Creating an XML file. See the Conceptual Content topics in the Sandcastle Help File Builder's help file for more information.

The Sandcastle Tools and Sandcastle Help File Builder have been merged into a single common folder structure. The Getting Started link has a pretty good walkthrough on what you need to do to setup Sandcastle and the Sandcastle Help File Builder software. 13 September 10.

Help file is built, all images referenced by an image link are copied to the help file's .\Media folder. Go to Start menu and select Sandcastle Help Builder and click on Sandcastle Help File Builder GUI. Sandcastle is a set of command line programs, configuration files, build components and XSLT files that work together to convert XML-based documentation into help topics that are fit for viewing in a help system.Sandcastle is typically used to automatically generate web-ready, XML-compliant HTML documentation in one of three built-in presentation styles from .NET assemblies and XML.

These sites can explain the next steps certainly better than I can. Darrell Norton, MVP Darrell Norton's Blog Please click "Mark as Answer" if this helped you. You don't need to use Sandcastle Help File Builder with Help+Manual, and it is also not possible to do so.

An archive of the CodePlex open source hosting site. Before extracting it, right click on the ZIP file, select Properties, and click on the Unblock button if it is present in the lower right corner of the General tab in the properties dialog. Not only does the tool make it easy to generate help files using a flexible graphical user interface (GUI), it also guides you through its installation and the installation of all required dependencies.

The primary executable is named SandcastleBuilder.exe. Sandcastleヘルプファイルビルダーのインストールを行いますので、 Install SHFBボタンを押下→ウィザードに従って、インストール→Finishボタンを押下して、ウィザードを閉じるとNextボタン押下の指示に従って、Nextボタンを押下. It generates documentation that has a similar GUI to NDoc.

We will first create a simple class library and add an Employee class. Why play Sandcastle Builder?. There is now an independent project called Sandcastle Help File Builder, developed and maintained on Codeplex by Eric Woodruff.

Creating a demo project Creating a project. Sandcastle Help File Builder – the GUI. HTML Help API Library File (Htmlhelp.lib) End-User License Agreement.

Sandcastle Help File Builder Step #1 - It is important that you check installed programs and make sure you uninstall any version previous to 2.7. In summary, it could be anything which may benefit anyone – possibilities could endless. Click OK to save it, and then click Set as Default to make it the default tool for opening the help file builder projects.

Select File | New Project. It's rumored to be incredibly deep and awesome, but you try it and it just confuses the fuck out of you. However, Sandcastle Help File Builder (SHFB) has an excellent feature, where it takes this output and actually makes it useful.

For demo purposes, we will be. For every project in your Visual Studio solution for which you want documentation generated, go to the Project Properties dialog in the “Build” section and select (check) the “XML Documentation File” option in the. They cover the various file types that are used in the build process.

Sandcastle Builder is the Dwarf Fortress of idle games;. You will be able to see File builder application opened. In the previous post I have briefly explained how to setup SHFB project in Visual Studio.

The use of Sandcastle can be simplified using a tool named, "Sandcastle Help File Builder" (SHFB), developed by Eric Woodruff. How to use Sandcastle Help File Builder to autogenerate documentation I use to document my functions etc. Click Save to create the new project.

Sandcastle Builder really is, hands-down, THE deepest idle game out there, both in mechanics and in scale. Define the Help file Format within the HelpFileFormat Property in the. Take a look at the UI - there are lots of options available to customize the documentation generating process.

It's open source and free. If you see a. Apparently the installer will not update things correctly.

You should find the gui in your start menu > programs. The problem is that I also don't get any documentation. Hello I generated .chm file for my C# class library with Sandcastle March CTP and Sandcastle Help File Builder.

Click on "Start a brand new project" and it will give you an option for where to save this document. Download and install SHFB on your build server. In the Save As dialog box, select the folder in which to save the new project and enter its name.

On some systems, the content of the ZIP file is blocked and the installer may fail to run. The SHFB Installation Instructions certainly mention this, but you might. Note The Sandcastle Help File Builder does not use a media content file directly.

The setup package generally installs about 66 files and is usually about 10.06 MB (10,547,912 bytes). Sandcastle Help File Builder. I get a chm file with "Namespace" at the top and none of my classes or the program.cs are represented in the chm.

Can any one explain how do I register the help file to VS05 so that I can use context sensitive help (F1) when writing code that uses my class library?. Any unused images are omitted. Launch SHFB (Sandcastle Help File Builder) and look around.

And open the *.sln. The next steps are to open the GUI (SandCastel Help File Builder) and create a new project. Creating a help file from them requires several configuration files and the Sandcastle tools.

Help+Manual cannot be used with Sandcastle Help File Builder. Right-click on Document Sources and add either the .exe, .dll or the project file.