Sandcastle (software) - Compiled Help

Compiled Help

Sandcastle does not produce compiled help output itself; although, the HTML files that it produces can be used as input to HTML help compilers such as the HTML Help Workshop and Microsoft Help 2.

For example, the typical Help 1.x build process starts by running MrefBuilder.exe to produce an XML reflection file for one or more assemblies. The reflection file is then processed by the XslTransform.exe tool multiple times to apply various XSL transformations that add data such as a "doc model" and optional version information. Next, an XML-based topic manifest is generated and used by the BuildAssembler.exe program, which generates HTML topic files from the reflection data and XML documentation comments. An XML-based table of contents (TOC) file is generated and used by CHMBuilder.exe, along with the HTML files produced by BuildAssembler, to generate HTML Help Workshop project, index and TOC files. Finally, the HTML Help workshop is used to generate a compiled help file (.chm).

Some tools are used multiple times during a single build, like XslTransform and BuildAssembler. Depending upon the requirements, other tools and XSL transformations may be used at various stages during the process to modify Sandcastle's output.