ReadMe for Microsoft HTML Help 1.21

This document provides late-breaking or other information that supplements the Microsoft HTML Help 1.21 documentation. The information in this document is more up-to-date than the information in the help system. Many of the issues outlined in this document will be corrected in upcoming releases.

The HTML Help version 1.21 release updates only the runtime vierwer

The HTML Help ActiveX control version 1.21

HTML Help Workshop version 1.2

The HTML Help Java Applet

HTML Help version 1.21 and Internet Explorer

HTML Help version 1.21 and Windows NT

The HTML Help version 1.21 release updates only the runtime viewer:

This 1.21 release of HTML Help contains fixes only for the runtime viewer. No changes were made to the HTML Help Workshop, The HTML Help Image Editor, RTF Conversion, HHA.DLL (the compiler), the HTML Help Java Applet, or the documentation. The files that are updated are:

HHUPD.EXE 4.73.8412

HHCTRL.OCX 4.73.8412

HH.EXE 4.73.8412

The following section lists known issues with the Microsoft HTML Help ActiveX control version 1.21 (HHCTRL.OCX):

There are several issues concerning multi-topic printing:
1. Very large print jobs usually fail.
2. Topics containing framesets can only be printed individually, not as part of a set of topics. If you choose to print multiple topics (for example, all topics under a heading), and any topic in this set contains a frameset, the entire print job will be cancelled.
3. <BODY> start tags using an onload attribute (<BODY ONLOAD= ... >) may break multi-topic printing.
4. If topics use cascading style sheets, the style sheet for the first topic in the set will be used for all topics. If the first style sheet cannot be found, no styles will be applied.
5. Scripts that provide content may not work. The content will not appear in the printout.
For HTML Help API calls to work correctly on Windows 95 computers with Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.01 or earlier, you need to install DCOM95. DCOM95 is available at http://www.microsoft.com/com/. DCOM95 is installed with Internet Explorer 4.0 or later.
If you create window definitions with a name that is a single character, the workshop will crash when the window is called either from the API or from the tables of contents, index, topic links, or through a default window definition.
If you are using version 1.0 of HTML Help and want to upgrade to version 1.21, do not try to run Setup directly over the Web. To install, download the version 1.21 files, save them to a local drive, and then restart before running Setup. You can update from version 1.1 to version 1.21 over the Web.
Version 1.0 of the HTML Help ActiveX control (Hhctrl.ocx) may open a compiled help (.chm) file created with either the HTML Help 1.1 compiler or the HTML Help 1.2 compiler and subsequently crash after browsing. Please upgrade to the 1.21 version of Hhctrl.ocx.
The highlighting feature in the Help Viewer, Search Highlighting Off/On (on the Help Viewer toolbar, click Options) requires reloading the topic currently displayed to see the changes.
Printing a heading that contains a topic that points to a broken link can cause the first part of the subsequent topic to be cut off.
The ActiveX control Window parameter should not be used. The HTML Help ActiveX Control Wizard user interface in the workshop, however, still contains the Window option. Do not enter a window name in the wizard. As a result, it will not insert this parameter in the <OBJECT> tag code.
Information types do not work correctly for table of contents entries that refer to multiple topics with different information types. The user always sees the same topic no matter which information types are selected.
HREF links do not work if the HREF attribute is trying to access a topic in a compiled help (.chm) file that is in a folder that contains Japanese characters. To fix this problem, move the help file to a non-Japanese folder.
When printing multiple topics, formatting information is sometimes lost if any topic's </BODY> end tag does not occur on a line by itself. When authoring, it is best to place each </BODY> end tag on its own line.
Alternate topic jumps from Related Topic links created in the workshop will fail unless edited by hand. The HTML Help ActiveX Control Wizard user interface forces users to enter a title in the Item1 parameter. This prevents the alternate topic from working. Users should manually remove the title from the <OBJECT> tag code. Otherwise, the alternate topic will be ignored.
The wizard will create an <OBJECT> tag similar to the following, which includes a title string "title":
```
    <PARAM name="Command" value="Related Topics">
    <PARAM name="Button" value="Text:related">
    <PARAM name="Item1" value="title;nowhere.txt;bar3.htm">
```
To enable the alternate topic jump, you must edit the tag to remove this title string:
```
 
    <PARAM name="Command" value="Related Topics">
    <PARAM name="Button" value="Text:related">
    <PARAM name="Item1" value="nowhere.txt;bar3.htm">
```

The following section lists known issues with Microsoft HTML Help Workshop version 1.2:

On Windows 95 computers, HTML Help Workshop requires Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0 or later to work. This is due to the fact that the workshop requires Msvcrt.dll, which does not ship with Internet Explorer 3.0.
The HTML Help Installation and Update package (Hhupd.exe) for the Alpha platform returns an error message during installation, but correctly sets up the required files for HTML Help to operate. There is no workaround other than ignoring the error message.
Testing of the HTML Help API (on the Test menu, click HtmlHelp API) often hangs if an error of any sort is returned. This especially occurs if you click anywhere outside of the error dialog box.
You can only compile files locally, that is, in the [FILES] section of your project (.hhp) file, you can only specify a path to files on your hard disk, not to files on a network, Internet, or intranet location.
Compiling with a WinHelp project (.hlp) file in the [FILES] section of the HTML Help project (.hhp) file causes an internal error and application error in Hhw.exe.
The ActiveX control Window parameter should not be used. The HTML Help ActiveX Control Wizard user interface in the workshop, however, still contains the Window option. Do not enter a window name in the wizard. As a result, it will not insert this parameter in the <OBJECT> tag code.
You cannot always use the workshop to make changes to contents (.hhc) files that include other contents files. Sometimes the changes will not be saved. To correct this problem, try editing the contents file in a text editor, such as Microsoft Notepad.
If you try to run the HTML Help Update and Installation package (Hhupd.exe) when the HTML Help ActiveX control (Hhctrl.ocx) is running and HTML Help Workshop is open, Hhctrl.ocx will not be registered even though it was updated. To prevent this, close HTML Help Workshop before updating.
The Automatically display compiled help file when done check box, on the Create a Compiled File dialog box, does not work. To display a help file after compilation, you must click the View Compiled File button, and then select the file.
On the Information Types tab of the Contents Properties dialog box, you can associate information types with specific categories by checking them. You must click in the actual check box for this to work. If you click the name of the information type, or miss the check box, HTML Help Workshop will not save the information type and may enter an unstable state, which can lead to a crash. If this occurs, close HTML Help Workshop, open the project again, and then carefully assign the information type categories.
If you try to create an information type category that does not contain any information types, the new category will not be written to the contents (.hhc) file. All categories must contain information types.
Using an ampersand (&) when naming information types or information type categories causes all text following the ampersand to be lost.
Information types and information type categories do not work in DBCS languages (for example, Japanese).
RTF-to-HTML conversion does not convert some WinHelp macros and Shed graphics.
During conversion of WinHelp projects, an index is created in the HTML Help project even if no index existed in the WinHelp project.
ALinks and KLinks are not converted during conversion of WinHelp projects.
ALinks and KLinks are a new feature in HTML Help version 1.2. If you compile a help project that includes them, and then, on the Compiler tab, select version 1.0 in the Compatibility list, they will not work.
HTML Help Workshop will pull in titles from the <TITLE> tag for a maximum of 5,000 HTML files.
Full-text search cannot be used as the only method of navigation in the Help Viewer.
The index cannot be used as the only method of navigation in the Help Viewer.
Full-text search and index cannot be used as the method of navigation in the Help Viewer.
HTML Help now saves state information, in a file called Hh.dat, on where the HTML Help Viewer was last positioned and which tab was last used. If you are viewing help and change the window or tab positions, the new locations are stored in Hh.dat. Help authors using version 1.2 of HTML Help Workshop need to rename this file to view the default window and tab settings set up in their project file.
The file Hhctrl.lib is not used or supported in this version of the workshop.
Double-clicking a project, contents, or index file in Windows while HTML Help Workshop is active can have unpredictable results, especially if a dialog box is open in HTML Help Workshop.
When HTML Help Workshop crashes, it sometimes saves corrupt information in the registry. The next time you launch HTML Help Workshop, it will start minimized and you will be unable to restore it. The solution is to delete the "winpos" value in the following registry key:
HKEY_USERS\S-1-5-21-2127521184-1604012920-1887927527-54602\Software\Microsoft\HTML Help Workshop\Settings.
Custom buttons (.bmp files) for the ActiveX control (ALinks, KLinks, Shortcuts, etc) are not compiled into the help file automatically. If you use bitmap images for your ActiveX control buttons, you need to include them in the [FILES] section of your project file, as if they were HTML topic files.
On Windows 95 and Windows 98 platforms, the Window Definition Position setting, Save user defined window position after first use, will be cleared whenever you view your Position settings (by clicking Add/Modify Window Definitions, and then clicking the Position tab). If you select this check box again, and then save your project (.hhp) file, the setting will be saved to your .hhp file.
It is not recommended to launch a second instance of Hh.exe using the Shortcut command. This has been shown to cause crashes on Windows 95, 98, and NT 5.x. If you need to link to a topic in another .chm, use the following syntax:
<A HREF="ms-its:file name.chm::/topic.htm"></A>
Accessing owned/child compiled help files from a Visual Basic (VB) project can crash VB. To ensure that this does not happen, add:
HtmlHelp(0&, "", HH_CLOSE_ALL, 0&)
to the Terminate subroutine of your main VB window. This forces your application to close all HTMLHelp windows it opened before closing itself.
The HTML Help compiler can slow down on large projects because of the log output. There are two ways to fix this problem. The first option is to clear some compiler settings. This may speed up the compilation process. You can clear compiler settings by opening a project (.hhp) file, clicking Project Options, clicking the Compiler tab, and then clearing the Notes and Progress check boxes.
Or, if this doesn't work, you can use the command line compiler, Hhc.exe, instead of Hhw.exe to compile the project. Do the following:
1. Add the path for HTML Help Workshop to your system path.
2. When you want to compile, open a Command Prompt.
3. Change directory to the location of the project file.
4. Use the following command to compile, and get your compile progress
  HHC filename.hhp>mylog.log
  This will redirect the output of the compiler to mylog.log.

The following section lists known issues with the Microsoft HTML Help Java Applet:

The possible combinations of browsers and operating systems are too numerous for any exhaustive testing with the HTML Help Java Applet. Nevertheless, here are some known bugs.

The applet does not work with Netscape Navigator 4.04 on non-Power-PC Macs.
The applet does not load on the Power PC Mac with Internet Explorer 3.01a and ED4.0p1.
Japanese characters will not display with Japanese Netscape 4.03.
Some topics using multiple frames can cause a GPF.
The applet does not support keyboard operation. There are numerous keyboard accessibility bugs that vary with the Internet browser being used. These bugs include intermittent loss of keyboard focus and loss of ability to tab through links.
Index items may be incorrectly sorted.
Graphics do not print correctly.
When topics are filtered by Information type, printing topic selections may include or exclude topics incorrectly.
Large contents files with large keyword indexes may take a long time to load.
After using links, especially related topic links, topic may not draw correctly until refreshed.

The following section lists known issues with Microsoft HTML Help 1.21 and Microsoft Internet Explorer:

With Internet Explorer 3.x, you cannot display any content in a compiled help (.chm) file if Content Advisor is set to not display unrated content.
Only users with Internet Explorer 4.0 or later will be able to use the Internet Explorer enhancements that allow compiled help files to be viewed on a Web site. This only applies to users viewing files on the World Wide Web.

The following section lists known issues with Microsoft HTML Help 1.21 and Windows NT:

The HTML Help Installation and Update package (Hhupd.exe) will not run on a Windows NT system unless you have administrative privileges.
HTML Help does not run on any version of Windows NT earlier than Windows NT 4.0.

HHUPD.EXE	4.73.8412
HHCTRL.OCX	4.73.8412
HH.EXE	4.73.8412