Monday, March 28, 2011

Code::Blocks and visual c++ 2010 help system

I've recently been trying to move from Visual C++ to Code::Blocks for several of my projects. One issue I've had was to integrate the Visual C++ help system with the help plugin.

I couldn't make this work with Visual C++ 9.0 because dexplorer.exe does not seem to allow forcing a single instance. Something like:

"C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\Help 9\dexplore.exe" /helpcol ms-help://MS.VSCC.v90 /LaunchFKeywordTopic $(keyword)

works, but always opens in a new window. Visual Studio starts dexplore.exe with -Embedding, but it looks like it's sending windows message afterwards, not relying on instances.

However, I found H3Viewer, a dexplorer-like viewer for the Visual C++ 2010 documentation. Setting the command line to:

"C:\Program Files\Helpware\H3Viewer\h3viewer.exe" "http://127.0.0.1:47873/help/1-6992/ms.help?product=VS&productVersion=100&locale=en-us&method=search&query=$(keyword)&format=html&PageSize=200&PageNumber=1"

works nicely. Unchecking "Open F1 Topics in a New Tab" in H3Viewer will always reuse the current tab instead of opening a new one.

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