Visual Basic Concepts

Adding Help to Your Application

No matter how well crafted the application, at some point most users are going to have questions about how to use it. Unless you're going to be there to answer their questions in person, the best way to handle this is by providing a Help file for the application.

Visual Basic provides support for two different Help systems: the traditional Windows Help system (WinHelp), and the newer HTML Help. This appendix covers the steps necessary to add either WinHelp or HTML Help to your application, pointing out the few differences between the two where applicable. What it doesn't cover is how to author a Help file — there are numerous authoring tools available that can help you to do that.

Topics

	Adding Support for Help Describes the procedure for adding Help to your application using either WinHelp or HTML Help.
	Adding Support for What's This Help Describes the procedure for implementing What's This Help in your application using either WinHelp or HTML Help.
	Distributing Help with Your Application Explains the requirements for packaging and distributing Help.