KeyHH 1.1

You can use KeyHH to create a standalone HTML Help window. This window remains open until the user closes it. Once this window is created, you can open new topics in the window without creating a new window, just as you can with WinHelp. You can use this functionality from an HTML Help window, a program, or a WinHelp file.

Although you can easily link from an HTML Help (.chm) file to a WinHelp (.hlp) topic, the opposite is more difficult. KeyHH is designed to help you to open a .chm file from a WinHelp topic. This feature is especially useful if you're creating hybrid (mixed WinHelp and HTML Help) documentation sets. For example, suppose you decided that you want to use WinHelp topics for What's This? help, since WinHelp popup topics are more feature-rich than HTML Help popups. However, you also want to link from the What's This? help topics to a more complete explanation in a .chm file. KeyHH allows you to do this without creating multiple HTML Help windows.

A common way of linking topics in a help system is through keyword and associative links--KLinks and ALinks, in WinHelp terminology. Both HTML Help and KeyHH support this linking capability. However, KeyHH also allows you to open the new topics in a window that is already open. In addition, KeyHH allows you to use ALinks and KLinks in ways that HH.EXE doesn't support. For example, you can:

• Run KLinks and ALinks that are in a WinHelp topic that is linked to your .chm file.
• Create a standalone window from an ALink or KLink, rather than just from a specific URL (although you can do that, too)
• From a program, open a particular topic through ALinks or KLinks, even if your program doesn't handle structures or the HtmlHelp API)

HTML Help 1.1 requires you to open a mapped topic in the default window set up in the project. (Mapped topics allow programmers to open a topic in an HTML Help window without having to know the URL. Instead, all they need to know is the id you have mapped to the topic.) HTML Help 1.1 ignores a window type associated with a mapped topic and attempts to open the topic in the default window in your project. If you don't specify a default window, HTML Help attempts to create a default window but doesn't always do a good job. Using KeyHH, you can open a mapped HTML Help topic in any window that you have set up in your project. This doesn't have to be the default window.

If you're using HTML Help 1.2 or later, you don't need to worry about this problem.