Sandcastle Cookbook

This is the MS help builder, and we use it to build the TeleSign C#/.NET SDK docs.

Install SandCastle

Get the Latest Version of Sandcastle

Home Page: http://shfb.codeplex.com/

Download Page: http://shfb.codeplex.com/downloads/get/743752 (October 2013 v2.7.4.0).

Local Install Bits: X:\Microsoft\SandCastle\SandcastleInstaller.exe

HTML Help 1 Compiler

This is one of several SandCastle components.

You use this particular component to build the TeleSign .Net SDK docs.

The SandCastle Guided Installer discovered that you already had it installed.

Location: C:\Program Files (x86)\HTML Help Workshop\

Microsoft Help 2 Compiler

Another SandCastle component.

You probably don’t need this component.

This is the help with the \*.hxs extension.

The SandCastle Guided Installer couldn’t find the Microsoft Help 2 compiler on your system.

dExplore and Astro

These are the install notes from when you worked at MS.

dExplore

Local Install Point: X:\Microsoft\Dexplore\DExplore.exe Is installed to: C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Help 8\dexplore.exe

Astro

Is installed to: c:\Program Files\Astro\Astro.exe

Local Install Point: X:\Microsoft\Tools\MsHelp2

You must register all of the Havana dlls.

  1. Open a command prompt with elevated priveleges.
  2. Run the command
X:\\Microsoft\\Tools\\MsHelp2\\Register_MSHelp2.Cmd
Namespace.exe

This is the tool you used to manually add a new HTML Help 2.0 collection to an existing HTML Help 2.0 collection.

Install Directory

%USERPROFILE%\\My Documents\\Namespace.exe

SandCastle Tools

I’m not sure, but I think this provides SandCastle’s core functionality.

The SandCastle Guided Installer ran the install file

X:\\Microsoft\\SandCastle\\InstallResources\\Sandcastle_2740.msi

MAML Schema IntelliSense for Visual Studio

The SandCastle MAML schema files can be integrated into the Visual Studio global schema cache so that you can have IntelliSense while editing MAML topic files within Visual Studio.

MAML Snippets for Visual Studio

The SandCastle MAMO snippets files can be integrated in the Visual Studio local snippet cache so that you can have a list of common block and inline elements available for insertion as snippets while editing MAML topic files within Visual Studio.

SandCastle Help File Builder

The SandCastle Help File Builder (SHFB) was created to probide project management features, add the missing NDoc-like features that are used most often, and provide graphical and command line based tools to byuild a help file in an automated fashion using SandCastle.

Installed From

X:\\Microsoft\\SandCastle\\InstallResources\\SandcastleHelpFileBuilder_1980.msi

Installed to

C:\\Program Files (x86)\\EWSoftware\\Sandcastle Help File Builder\\

Sandcastle Help File Builder Visual Studio Package

This is a companion to the Sandcastle Help File Builder (SHFB) that will allow you to create, manage, and build help file projects from within Visual Studio. The core build engine that was installed in the previous step is required for it to work correctly.

SandCastle as a Visual Studio Extension File

X:\\Microsoft\\SandCastle\\InstallResources\\SHFBVisualStudioPackage_1980.vsix

Visual Studio Spell Checker

If you need a spell checker for Visual Studio, the Visual Studio Spell Checker can be downloaded and installed from the Visual Studio Gallery. It’s an editor extension that checks the spelling of comments, strings, and plain text as you type or interactively with a tool window. Support is included for spell checking source code, XML files, and MAML topic files.

Install Point

http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/a23de100-31a1-405c-b4b7-d6be40c3dfff

Overriding CSS styles

The website files are a part of SHFB, not Sandcastle which is why it only looks in the SHFB folder for them. Also, the website files are not presentation style specific. SHFB does support overriding the output by adding like-named files to your SHFB project in the root or like-named folders. For example, if you add a \Styles folder to your project, and you put a Presentation.css file in it with your customizations, and you set its BuildAction to Content, it will overwrite the default stylesheet when it is copied to the build folder and will be compiled into the help file.

You can override any of the default SHFB website files by putting customized versions of the files in the root folder of your project.