HOWTO: Implement "What's This?" Help in Visual Basic 4.0

• Standard, Professional, and Enterprise Editions of Microsoft Visual Basic, 32-bit only, for Windows, version 4.0

SUMMARY

Under Windows 95 and Windows NT 3.51, it is possible to right-click on items and get the "What's This?" window to appear. To set this up in Visual Basic, you need to use a pop-up menu.

MORE INFORMATION

1. Start Visual Basic 4.0 or, if it is already running, click New Project on the File menu.

2. Set the WhatsThisHelp and WhatsThisButton properties for Form1 to TRUE.

3. Add the following code to reference the Hotspot Editor help file to the Form_Load procedure:

         Private Sub Form_Load()
             '  This should point to the hc directory under the VB4 directory
             App.HelpFile = "c:\vb\hc\shed.hlp"
         End Sub
   
   

4. Add two menu items to Form1 using the following as a guide:

         Menu                   Property            Value
         ----------------------------------------------------
         WhatsThis              Caption            WhatsThis
         WhatsThis              Name               mnuWhatsThis
         WhatsThis              Visible            False
   
         What's This?           Caption            What's This?
         What's This?           Name           mnuWhatsThisHelp
   
   

5. Indent "What's This?" to make it a sub-menu of WhatsThis by pressing the right-arrow button on the Menu Editor.

6. Add the following code to the General Declarations section of Form1:

         Public ThisControl as control
   

7. Add the following code to the mnuWhatsThisHelp_Click procedure:

         Private Sub mnuWhatsThisHelp_Click()
            ThisControl.ShowWhatsThis
         End Sub
   
   

8. Add a Command Button control to the form and set the following Properties:

         WhatsThisHelpID = 1
         HelpContextID = 5
   

9. Add following code to the Command1_MouseUp event:

         Private Sub Command1_MouseUp(Button As Integer, Shift As Integer, _
                                      X As Single, Y As Single)
            If Button = vbRightButton Then
               Set ThisControl = Command1
               PopupMenu mnuWhatsThis
            End If
            Set ThisControl = Nothing
         End Sub
   
   

10. Run the application. Right-click on the Command button and then left-

        click on the "What's This?" popup to bring up the Help file.
    

REFERENCES

See WhatThisHelp, WhatsThisHelpID, HelpFile, HelpContextID