Windows 10 = No CHM?

[cindynotbrady]

This is a general question and I would love to hear feedback from others, but someone at my job just downloaded Windows 10, and now he can't see the help files tied to our application (software). This is going to be a huge headache if chm's are no longer supported. I'm sure there will be some work arounds, but have any of you gone through this struggle yet? I'm guessing we need our programmers to design help so that instead of calling the chm, it calls browser-based help in a little window, similar to Microsoft Word's help (I personally hate that type of <F1> help).

I noticed Help and Manual's help still calls a chm, so that's good.

[Darren Rose]

CHM files work perfectly fine in Windows 10 for me?!

Just tested by opening H&M own CHM help file located in C:\Program Files (x86)\EC Software\HelpAndManual7

[Tim Green]

Hi Cindy,

Windows 10 definitely still supports CHM files without restriction so you must be having some other issue with your help files. Is the CHM viewer not coming up at all or are you getting the viewer but the topic files are displaying blank? If the latter is the case it means the CHM is being opened on an external or network drive, or has been blocked by Windows because it was downloaded from the Internet rather than being installed by your software's installation routines. To unblock a file like that the user needs to right-click on it in Windows Explorer, select Properties in the context menu, and then Unblock in the dialog displayed.

CHM files must be installed locally, Windows won't allow access to them on external drives, network drives or the Internet. You will also run into problems with them on high-resolution Windows monitors and devices like the Microsoft Surface and Lenovo Yoga series. Help & Manual's topic content now scales fine for these devices, but Microsoft's viewer still doesn't, and the TOC and controls will all be tiny.

Help & Manual's new EWriter format in Windows 7 is a better solution for this on Windows than WebHelp. It gives you WebHelp in a single signable EXE file with an integrated viewer that supports CSS3, HTML5 and JS. You can make context calls to topics, anchors and help context numbers with simple parameters and unlike WebHelp in a browser every call opens in the same help window. You get all the layout features of WebHelp in a single compact file like a CHM. You can even have links to EXE files for interactive software tutorials. You might want to check it out as an option.

[cindynotbrady]

Wow. This is big stuff. I will look into this. I'm guessing we would need to communicate with our programmers who compile our software to figure out how to make the software bring up the help. I will need to either immerse myself in this big time, or take a class or two on this subject. I think we are currently operating in the stone age...or the 90s...sort-of the same as far as tech goes.

[Tim Green]

Hi Cindy,

Your programmers can find tutorials for interfacing with CHM files here for all the current major programming languages:

http://www.helpandmanual.com/support_tutorials.html

How to interface with EWriter files instead of CHM is explained directly in the Help & Manual help here:

http://www.helpandmanual.com/help/index ... ctions.htm