The Component UI API supports navigation help content and F1 context help via a NavigationItemUIInterface.
Navigation based help allows you to associate help with a particular navigation hierarchy in the navigation tree. If you have registered a help item for a particular navigation item then when a user navigates to that location in the tree the framework will query you for help content for that item. F1 help allows you to supply help in your dialogs and panels that is displayed when the user presses F1.
Navigation Help
Navigation help can be either static or dynamic. Static help is set when you insert the item with NavInsertItem but dynamic help is queried for by the framework when the user navigates to an associated navigation tree item.
To get dynamic help appearing there are two things you need to do.
First, register a help item with a Navigation Path that contains the path of the associated tree item. For instance, if the tree item was registered with the path NAVIGATIONTREE\ControlPanel\MyComponent then the path you need to use for the main content of the help item is HELP\NAVIGATIONTREE\ControlPanel\MyComponent
Secondly, register child help items for each section of the help pane that you wish to place help content into.
e.g.
HELP\NAVIGATIONTREE\ControlPanel\MyComponent\Main
HELP\NAVIGATIONTREE\ControlPanel\MyComponent\Related
HELP\NAVIGATIONTREE\ControlPanel\MyComponent\Header
The different sections allow you to place help content in different parts of the help pane. The sections available are:
| Type | Description |
|---|---|
| Header | Places content at the top of the help pane. Used for small content, such as links. The WMC puts a link to the WinGate Help there. |
| Main | The section where the main content of your help will reside |
| Related | Places content under the "Related Topics" section |
Specifying the help item path
In order to ensure that the path you use for your help item matches the tree item, you can get the navigation path for the tree item with NavGetItem and use the strFQN field to build the path passed to NavInsertItem for the help item. The following example inserts an item under the Control Panel item in the tree and associates dynamic help with it.
The NavItemHelpers code in sdk\helpers has more convenient ways to manage navigation items.