This is the readme.txt

I tried to get all the pieces you need into a single zip file and get hopefully the most recent version of each piece available.

Unzip the attached file as "c:\MM9Help". It should contain another folder MMHelp which contians all the topic source XML files and images. I think everything is relative except the help compiler location, but best to use this location first and then move it once things seem to be working.

If needed, run htmlhelp.exe to install the microsoft help compiler. If you install it into other than its default "c:\program files\html help workshop" folder you will have to change the fifth batch file accordingly.

There are six basic steps in my cuurent ABS script that I made into batch files for you.

Run the first batch file to clean out any files from previous builds.

Run the second batch file to copy the ModelMakerHelpTemplate.xml file to a working ModelMakerHelp.xml file.

Run the third batch file to open chapterList.xml and ModelMakerHelpTemplate.xml in notepad. Select and copy the entire contents of chapterList.xml and replace &ChapterList; in ModelMakerHelpTemplate.xml with it and then save ModelMakerHelpTemplate.xml and close both files. This is done dynamically in my ABS script.

Run the fourth batch file to convert the XML files to HTML, etc. files for the Help compiler. This takes about 5 minutes on my machine (P4 3.6GHz 2GB). Your milage may vary.

Run the fith batch file to create the CHM file from the HTML files. Can take a while but nothing lke the XML conversion.

Run the sixth batch file to cleanup all the working files (except the CHM).


Chapters.xml and Chapters.xml must be matched. If you look at them you'll get the idea. I often truncate them to just 10 or a 100 topics in order to speed up compiles while doing development and only use the full list for the final product.


ModelMakerHelp.css is the style sheet. The XML tags have a role attribute that becomes an HTML class attribute that the style sheet uses. Now they are just enumerated 
(for example, "rvps9") but we can gradually covert them to roles with more semantic meaning.

I moved xsltproc.exe and its associated DLLs to the system directory to make them more universally available and not clutter up the root help directory. Your choice.

Version.txt contains the current version. This is created dynamically in my ABS script.

Hope this helps.


--Greg