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Display On-Demand Help Content in WinForms Applications

Deliver relevant and helpful information to your end-users on-demand with ComponentOne DynamicHelp for WinForms.

  • View embedded help files within your Windows Forms applications
  • Dynamically load and display specific topics when users interact with certain parts of the interface
  • Provide help topics on individual controls, including hyperlinks, images, tables, and more
  • Supports .NET Framework
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Why Choose DynamicHelp for WinForms?

Provide DynamicHelp to End Users

As the name implies, DynamicHelp provides instant, relevant information to end-users without requiring them to externally research how to use your .NET application.

Deliver Documentation within Your Applications

DynamicHelp lets you view and dynamically load content from embedded help files in your desktop application.

Familiar Help System

DynamicHelp provides the same type of Help system available in Microsoft Visual Studio and Microsoft Office.

WinForms DynamicHelp Key Features

Developers and Help Authors Can Perform Topic Mapping

Software developers can map topics to controls at design time, or Help authors can use authoring mode — a special run-time mode with a simple interface — to do the mapping themselves. No additional code needs to be added once DynamicHelp for WinForms is integrated with the application.

Runtime Authoring Mode

Authoring mode allows non-technical help authors to link parts of the UI to topics within embedded help files at runtime. The developer can specify a way for Help authors to quickly activate and deactivate authoring mode for topic mapping. Any method can be used — like a keystroke combination, an environment variable, a .config file, or so on.

Additional Features

Documentation UI Pane

DynamicHelp provides a UI pane to display XHTML-based help content directly within your WinForms application. Dock it on the left or right, and hide it when not in use.

Supported Help Formats

DynamicHelp has built-in support for NetHelp (.chm) and HTML help (.html). The IHelpProvider class can be used to support additional help formats including MS Help, WinHelp, and RoboHelp.

Control How to Trigger the Help

Easily configure how the context-sensitive Help topic is triggered by the end user: on hover, focus, or programmatically displayed.