Create and integrate a Help File for WPF vb.net - wpf

I would like to implement a F1 help/user guide for my WPF MVVM vb.net project but I can't seem to even create a project for it.
So I've done some searching and a lot of answers to this question on here are over 5 years old and most of the links are broken so I'd like to get a more up-to-date answer.
I also found this msdn page, which talks all about a HTML help project (.hhp) in visual studio, yet I cannot seem to find it.
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms524279(v=vs.85).aspx
My life is also made that bit harder by the fact that the PC I write code on isn't connected to the internet.
Any help appreciated

There is an alternate way to do this. When you press F1 key on the keyboard , an addition window with a tree structure comes of. That is totally written in HTML and CSS.
Have a look at Microsoft HTML Help Workshop.

Related

Where do you generate the datasource for the solution in a winforms MVC solution?

I am creating a Winforms MVC project called Cookies.
Following guidelines from various searches, I have a solution with 4 separate projects: Cookies-Controller; Cookies-Model; Cookies-View and
UseCookiesApplication (used as the starting stub with the program.cs file).
I got it all working with a "dummy" view with a simple listview control with hard-coded list items.
However, I then wanted a "proper" view showing data from a SQL Database.
My problem is ... under which project should I generate the datasource to ensure that it is appropriately visible?
If I do so under the Cookies-Controller project then it is not visible when I go to a view in design mode.
If I generate under Cookies-View then I get the error "...could not get type information for 'CookiesView.CookiesDataSet'".
I have successfully built Web-based MVC solutions, and standard winforms, but this has got me a tad confused.
Any help or pointers to other sites would be massively appreciated.
James
UPDATE:
I have looked more deeply at MVP and can see it as viable alternative to Winforms MVC for what I need right now. So thanks again to #VirtualValentin and also #Jimi.
However, my original question still stands and, from a purely educational point of view, I would be grateful if someone who has developed a Winforms MVC Database application could enlighten me.
James

Is there a free WinForms control similar to Telerik's RadDock?

I'm looking to create an interface which has drag-drop-dock functionality like Visual Studio. Telerik offers exactly what I'm looking for:
http://www.telerik.com/products/winforms/dock.aspx
Trouble is, it will cost $1000. This is a side project and I don't have a budget for that. Does anyone know of a similar control which is free and/or open source? Google didn't turn up any results.
Thanks
I ended up going more low-level and using OpenTk GameWindow and GWEN, which contains docking.
GWEN - GUI Without Extravagant Nonsense
https://github.com/garrynewman/GWEN
It's absolutely great, but unfortunately the original project is abandoned. There are a ton of forks at different states. I've personally had a lot of success with it.

Creating an updating GUI, IE Video or Blog service in VB.net Winforms

First of all I would like to thank everyone on this forum, as you have made some of my friends greatest projects successful and I was hoping one of these projects can be done without them.
Now I want to expand to other services. I want to make an app in WinForms or WPF (But im still learning XAML so if you can it would help to answer for winforms) that constantly updates data and displays pictures or video in a row/rows. Like almost Moviebox for iPhone or Showbox for android. How movies are updated constantly without updating the app. (Im not promting piracy, its just the best example I could think of). And when you click on the movie(Which is a picture) it gives a description and picture and even a youtube video.
It kinda would work like a blog reader.... I think?
I think I will need a server and I will probably need a database. But sadly , i'm still a beginner, but willing to learn. Thanks and if you need any more info, please just ask. :)
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/br211380.aspx?cs-save-lang=1&cs-lang=vb#code-snippet-2 The answer! I think? Any helpers?
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/br211380.aspx?cs-save-lang=1&cs-lang=vb#code-snippet-2 This MSDN example explained everything I needed in full!

How are you integrating help into your WPF application. Any recommendations?

The question says it all really. If you are writing a WPF application, how are you integrating the application help? What is the state of play in mid-2013?
It seems that there is no clear answer to this from an afternoon with a search engine, but several options:
Write your own fancy tooltip based help (but where are you getting your data from?)
Use .CHM files and the Windows Forms help system (seems archaic to me).
Use Microsoft Help Viewer 1.X or Microsoft Help 2.0.
There is some confusion as to which is more recent / approved of by MS. It appear Help Viewer 1.X might be the recommended option over Microsoft Help 2.0. It doesn't help that the names are so similar...
What is the status of 2.0? Should we use it? Was it ever fully deployed?
Use a third-party product to author your help files and link to them somehow - DocToHelp/NetHelp, NetAdvantage on-line help, etc...
Furthermore, what XAML based mark-up / attributes are you using to provide the necessary context? What is the recommended method?
It seems surprising there is no clear path for supporting application based help in WPF.
My current preference is to use a third party help authorizing system to generate HTML based help.
We then use a WebBrowser to display this help as needed. The authoring system we use makes it fairly easy to extract out a single page from the main help (each "topic" is a single HTML file, and can be included with full contents or not as desired).
Granted, this definitely felt like a bit of a nasty hack at first - but once we wrote the basic plumbing (some attached properties for xaml to specify attributes for context location and add behavior to trigger help, etc), it's fairly clean.
One very nice advantage to this approach, however, is a single help system build works perfectly in all contexts - we can include the documentation online, expose it locally for use in a browser, and use it with context from within our application directly.

Create Better Looking Buttons in VBA without using Image

Is there anyway to create more rounded/professional looking buttons using vba. I found a couple places that suggested using images, which is not a terrible Idea, but I was wondering if anyone had a clue if there is a downloadable software, add-in, or anything. The ones currently available make my program look like an Mid 90's application. I really appreciate the help. I mean look at it!!
Office VBA uses the Microsoft Forms Engine which is a lightweight (drawn) implementation of a GUI toolkit. Because of this the usual techniques used to customise button appearance on windows (owner-drawing/theming) don't apply and your stuck with what you've got.
If you don't want to use images you need to find an ActiveX control that does the job, something like http://www.arcadiahome.com/products/components/activex/powerbutton.htm .

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