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Subject:Switching help files dynamically From:geoff-h -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA Date:Thu, 18 Sep 1997 08:25:21 -0500
A while back, I asked whether it was possible to have two
Win3.1 help files (in this case, and English and French
version) that could both be context sensitive; that is, if
the user switches to French mode, the context sensitive help
automatically uses the French file. Here's the summary of
responses:
Some programming languages should permit changing the name
of the help file dynamically, for example, by assigning
the file name to a text string, and passing this name to
the function that calls WinHelp. You might be able to do
something similar with the context strings (e.g., have the
software automatically add 1000 to the numbers for the
context strings if the French language is selected, and
include both languages in the same file). No one was able
to confirm whether this can be done with software that
uses the Windows help engine.
A reasonable compromise would be to simply load a single
help file during installation of the software, and make
that the context sensitive file. Leave the other file,
non-context sensitive, on the hard disk so it can be used
as a standalone reference file. That's what I'll be doing.
Thanks to Yvonne DeGraw, Norbert Froehlich, and Kuovonne
Liu for providing advice.
--Geoff Hart @8^{)} geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca
Disclaimer: Speaking for myself, not FERIC.
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