To create Help files,  you are supposed to use an SDK.   But I find no such SDK either in my installed version of .NET nor on the installation disks.   This means that any Help SDK you might use has to be downloaded from Microsoft.

In addition,  a lot of this chapter is devoted to point-and-click for Help 2.0.   Which version of Help are you supposed to use?   Here is what Microsoft MSDN says on its  Help Technologies Start Page:

"Currently there are two versions of Help available for use with Microsoft Windows:  HTML Help 1.4 and Microsoft Help 2.   The Microsoft Help team  [no smart remarks,  please]  has decided not to release Microsoft Help 2 as a general Help platform.   This is primarily in response to customer feedback that the most important thing is providing a standard Help experience on everybody's machine.  .  .  .

"Microsoft Help 2 is intended exclusively for those who are shipping products that integrate with,  or extend,  Visual Studio.NET."

If you understand that,  could you explain it to me?   What it boils down to,  I'm afraid,  is that I can't find a clear answer as to where you should concentrate any effort you might want to spend on this chapter in Kalani.   It looks as if you should just read the chapter as quickly as possible and let it go at that.

I would like to confess that I don't see any obvious difference in the appearance of Help files produced by these two Help systems.      (Pictures:  Kalani,  pp. 694  [for Help 1.4]  and 704  [for Help 2])

I think you will probably get only a single question  (at most)  about any of this stuff.   (But see the note at  "Accessibility",  below.)   Word in the discussion groups seems to be that the exams still have the odd question about it.

Files in the Help 1.4 system

A Help 1.4  (or 1.3)  system contains several different file types.   The following is an expansion of Kalani's introductory list:      (Kalani,  p. 682)

• An overall help project file,  of type .hhp
• "Topic" files,  which are simply straight HTML files, of type .htm.   These files may of course contain hyperlinks among themselves.
• Multimedia files, of various types
• Contents files, of type .hhc
• Index files, of type .hhk
• All of these are compiled into a file of type .chm

Files in the Help 2 system

This ships as part of the  "Visual Studio Help Integration Kit"  (VSHIK).   (You may very well not have this as part of your .NET installation;  I didn't.)

In addition to the files listed above for Help 1.4,  Help 2 includes

• Collections files,  of type .hxc
• Keyword index files,  of type .hxf      (Kalani,  p. 703)

The  HelpProvider  component

This is a .NET class which provides a link between an application and a Help file.   (It may not seem credible,  but Kalani says,  in the box on page 706,  that Help 2 has no facility for creating such links.   Well,  maybe it does by now.)

The  HelpProvider  component has a useful property:

• HelpNamespace.   Set to the identity of the compiled Help files—that is, to the .chm  file.

  It can, in fact, be any .htm  file. Suppose you set the  HelpNamespace  property of your Form's  HelpProvider  object to,  oh,  say,  something like
  http://www.csharpharvard.net/CSharpHarvard/CertPrep/KCh10UserAssistance.htm
  —what do you think would happen if you pressed F1 with the focus on that Form?   Yes it would,  even if the Form's  ShowHelp on helpProvider1  property is set to  false.   What this means,  of course,  is that you can set this property to point to your own web page and change its Help information as often as needed to keep a user up-to-date.   All the user would have to do to get a browser opened to that web page would be to press F1.   It doesn't require a web application to do this.

  Remember that this  HelpNamespace  is a property of your  HelpProvider  object.   It is not a property of the form itself.

In addition, the presence of a  HelpProvider  object on a Windows Form causes the Form itself and all its components with a visual aspect to have the following properties  (assuming that the  HelpProvider  object on the Form is named  helpProvider1:      (Kalani, p. 706)

• HelpKeyword on helpProvider1.   Typically set to a specific .htm  page within the compiled  (.chm)  Help system.
• HelpNavigator on helpProvider1.   Usually set to "Topic".   (It's an enumeration.   Values:  AssociateIndex, Find, Index, KeywordIndex, TableOfContents, Topic.)
• ShowHelp on helpProvider1.   A boolean.   Set it to  true  if you want Help to show,  as you do.
• HelpString on helpProvider1.   The text for the pop-up or  "What's this?"  help supplied by the  HelpProvider.      (Kalani, p. 708)

• Set the Form's  HelpButton  property to  true,
• set the Form's  MinimizeBox  property to  false,  and
• set the Form's  MaximizeBox  property to  false.

• put a helpful text string in the Control's  HelpString on helpProvider1  property,  and
• set the Control's  ShowHelp on helpProvider1  property to  true.

These requirements make it look as if the only place you would really consider using this "Pop-up" help is on some small screen like a dialog box,  where you don't want the minimize and maximize buttons anyway.

The  Help  class

This is a static class with two members:    (Kalani, p. 708, top)

• Help.ShowHelp().   Displays the contents of a specified  Help  file.   Typically used in menu items.
• Help.ShowHelpIndex().   Shows the index of a specified  Help  file.

The  ToolTip  component

(We have seen this before.)   ToolTips are text strings that appear in their own boxes when the mouse hovers over a Control which has such a ToolTip defined.   To use one,  drag a  ToolTip  component from the ToolBox onto the Form.   This gives a  ToolTip  property for each visual component on the Form which you can use to give helpful text.

There are some associated properties:      (Kalani, p. 710)

• InitialDelay.   The time,  in milliseconds,  before the initial ToolTip text shows.
• AutoPopDelay.   How long the ToolTip remains displayed.
• ReshowDelay.   The delay before  subsequent  ToolTips are displayed.
• AutomaticDelay.   This value may be used to set the other values,  such as  InitialDelay.

The  Accessibility  class

"Accessibility" here means making computer systems usable by people with various disabilities.   There is a lot of general interest in this area,  and you are almost certain to see one question in this area.

There are some general guidelines here,  such as

• Don't depend on color or sound  alone  as the sole means of informing a user
• Make an application usable via the keyboard, not just via the mouse
• For Controls on your Form, provide labels and descriptions which might be read by a  "screen reader"

In addition,  there are properties specifically for Accessibility,  including      (Kalani, p. 713)

• AccessibleDescription.   "An object's AccessibleDescription property provides a textual description about an object's visual appearance. The description is primarily used to provide greater context for low-vision or blind users,  but can also be used for context searching or other applications."   (Help: "Control.AccessibleDescription Property")
• AccessibleName.   "The AccessibleName property is a label that briefly describes and identifies the object within its container, such as the text in a Button,  the name of a MenuItem, or a label displayed next to a TextBox control."   (Help: "Control.AccessibleName Property")
• AccessibleRole.   "The AccessibleRole property describes what kind of user interface element an object is."   (Don't ask; I don't understand that,  either.)     (Help: "Control.AccessibleRole Property")

  This property is set to a member of the surprisingly long  AccessibleRole  enumeration,  whose values include  Alert, animation, Application, Border, Caret, Chart, Clock, Cursor, Diagram, Document, DropList, Graphic,  etc., etc., etc.,  all the way to  Window.     (Help: "AccessibleRole Enumeration")

  It's apparently not to be used by beginners.   Kalani doesn't describe it,  and it doesn't appear as the right answer in any of the sample test questions—though it appears in other answers.

High-Contrast Mode

High-Contrast mode is indicated by a value of  true  in the system variable  SystemInformation.HighContrast.

A change in its setting is indicated by the  SystemEvents.UserPreferenceChanged  event.

If the boolean switch is on,  you should      (Kalani, p. 716)

• Use only system colors;
• Add visual cues;
• Remove background images or patterns.

    Test 1:  question  40  (page 375;  answer:  page 396).

    Test 2:  questions  10  (page 408;  answer:  page 440),  35.

(Some of these questions may duplicate those in long Kalani.   Both texts are listed here.)