Creating a Custom Filter (Windows CE 5.0)

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In the Document Explorer Help browser, you can create custom filters to fit your needs and work style. For example, you can create a filter that exposes only the Help topics for a specific technology.

To help you create useful filters, all topics in Windows CE Help have attributes associated with them. In general, these attributes correspond to the content of the topic or the type of information contained in it . Although you can only apply one filter to Help at a time, you can create custom filters that incorporate multiple attributes.

The following procedure is an example of a filter you could create.

To create a custom filter

1. From the Help menu in Document Explorer, choose Edit Filters.

   The Edit Help Filters tab appears in the main Help pane.

2. Choose the New link.

   The link is located between the tabs above the main Help pane and the contents of the pane.

3. In the List of Available Attributes and Their Values area, choose the attribute value that characterizes the Help topics you want to see in Contents after you apply your filter.

   When you choose an attribute value, a new filter clause is added to the filter string in the Filter definition box. You can continue to select additional attributes and additional values to incrementally build your filter string.

   By default, each new filter clause is appended to the end of the filter string with an OR operator. To change an OR operator to an AND operator, manually edit the filter string in the Filter definition box. You can also introduce parenthesis into the filter string to group filter clauses and create more sophisticated filters.

   For examples of filter strings, and for information about the specific meanings of the filter attributes and their values, see Attributes and Advanced Filters later in this topic.

4. (Optional) Choose the Calculate button to verify that the filter string in the Filter definition box is valid and selects topics.

   The filter string defines the conditions of the filter. The filter includes all Help topics for which these conditions are true and excludes all topics for which these condition are false.

5. Choose the Save As link.

   The Save Filter As dialog box appears.

6. Enter a name for your filter and then choose OK.

7. Verify that your filter works by selecting it from the Filtered by drop-down list, and then browsing Contents.

For information about using filters that are included with Document Explorer, see Using Existing Filters.

Attributes and Advanced Filters

The following table shows the Help attributes that you can use to create a custom filter. It is possible, though rare, for a topic to have multiple settings for the same attribute associated with it.

Attribute	Description
DevelopmentPhase	This attribute identifies the major steps in developing a Windows CE-based device. The possible values for this attribute correspond directly to the top-level sections of the Contents in Help: Hardware See Bringing Up a Hardware Platform Debugging See Debugging and Testing Application See Developing an Application Driver See Developing a Device Driver OS See Developing an Operating System Target See Developing a Target Device Migrate See Migrating from an Earlier Version of Windows CE
TopicType	This attribute identifies the type of information contained in a Help topic. The following list shows the possible values for this attribute: kbArticle Topics with conceptual, architecture, or background content kbTask Topics with steps that describe a procedure kbHowTo Topics that guide you through a complete development task kbOrient Topics with navigational links to other topics kbRef Topics with technical information about tools, error messages, wizards, file formats, templates, glossary definitions, and specifications kbSampleProd Topics that describe sample code apiref Topics with reference information for programming an OS application
Status	This attribute identifies how the content of a topic compares with the most recent previous version of Windows CE Help. The following list shows the possible values for this attribute. New Topics that did not exist in previous versions. Revised Topics that have been altered significantly since the previous version. Same Topics that are unchanged since the previous version.
Locale	This attribute identifies topics that have been translated for specific locales. Topics are marked with this attribute individually. Your Windows CE Help collection can contain topics for multiple locales, typically English and one other locale. The following list shows the possible values for this attribute. kbEnglish Topics written in English kbJapanese Topics that have been translated into Japanese.
DesignTemplate	This attribute identifies topics relevant for specific OS design templates. The following list shows the possible values for this attribute. Gateway See Developing a Gateway IPPhone See Developing an IP Phone ThinClient See Developing a Windows Thin Client
ContainsCode	This attribute identifies topics that contain example code. This attribute can either be True or False.
ContainsRegistryKeys	This attribute identifies topics that contain registry setting information. This attribute can either be True or False.
PBFeature	This attribute identifies topics that correspond to Platform Builder Catalog items. This attribute is set to the Sysgen variable that corresponds to a catalog item. Some Catalog items are smaller components that help build support for a larger technology. These items might have their own Sysgen variables, but their documentation might be a small, or very tightly integrated, portion of the documentation for the larger technology. In these cases, a filter based on the Sysgen variable that corresponds to the larger technology's Catalog item might return more results.

You can add attributes to your filters by choosing them from the List of Available Attributes and Their Values. You can also edit the contents of the Filter definition box directly.

As noted earlier in this topic, you can use AND and OR operators to combine attributes that create more complex filters. These are the only valid logical operators for Help filters.

The following code examples show filters that combine multiple Help attributes.

Only Core OS Services conceptual topics

("PBFeature"="CORE")

Only Core OS Services reference topics

("PBFeature"="CORE") AND ("TopicType"="apiref")

Only Core OS Services reference topics and debugging topics

(("PBFeature"="CORE") AND ("TopicType"="apiref")) OR ("DevelopmentPhase"="Debugging")

Bluetooth topics that contain code and GWES reference topics

("PBFeature"="SYSGEN_BTH" AND "ContainsCode"="True") OR ("PBFeature"="UI" AND "TopicType"="apiref")

See Also

Help Filters | Getting Assistance

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