Advanced MFC Programming

Chapter 16. Context Sensitive Help
should be input into the edit box labeled “Title”, and the footnote tag should be input into the edit box
labeled “Topic ID” (Figure 16-7).
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Tab Entries
Figure 16-7. Edit a tab entry
After making any change to the help project, we need to recompile the project in order to get the up-todate
help.
To make the help working, both “.hlp” and “.cnt” file must be copied to the directory that contains the
application executable file.
16.2 Context Sensitive Help for Common Controls
Sample 16.2-1\Help and 16.2-2\Help are based on sample 16.1\Help, they demonstrate how to support
context sensitive help in a dialog box.
Supporting Context Sensitive Help in Dialog Box
The previous section describes how to add context sensitive help for commands. We can also add this
fancy feature for common controls contained in a dialog box. To implement context sensitive help for a
dialog box, we can check “Context Help” check box under “More Styles” page of the “Dialog Properties”
property sheet (Figure 16-8). After this type of dialog boxes are invoked, a question mark button will
appear on their caption bars (Figure 16-9). This button has the same functionality with command
ID_CONTEXT_HELP described in the previous section. By clicking on this button, we will enter help mode,
with the mouse cursor becoming a question mark. As we click any controls contained in the dialog box
with this cursor, the help will be activated and the corresponding help window will be brought up.
Figure 16-8. Enable context sensitive help for dialog box
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