MOD2000: How to Display Context-Sensitive Help for the What'sThis Button (202314)


The information in this article applies to:

  • Microsoft Office 2000 Developer
  • Microsoft Access 2000
This article was previously published under Q202314
Advanced: Requires expert coding, interoperability, and multiuser skills.

For a Microsoft Office XP Developer version of this article, see 306370.

SUMMARY

You can provide context-sensitive Help for a What's This button on the title bar of your Access form by using the WhatsThisButton property. When you set this property to True, the mouse pointer changes to the What's This state (arrow with a question mark), and the topic displayed is identified by the HelpContextID property of the control that the user clicks.

This article demonstrates how to display context-sensitive Help for the WhatsThisButton property to open a particular Help file.

MORE INFORMATION

To display context-sensitive Help that appears when a user clicks the What's This button on the title bar, and then clicks an object on the form or the report, follow these steps:
  1. After you use the Microsoft HTML Help Workshop to create and compile your custom Help file, open the Access form where you want to provide What's This Help functionality in Design View.
  2. If the property sheet is not displayed, click Properties on the View menu.
  3. Change the MinMaxButtons property for the form to None, and the WhatsThisButton property to Yes.
  4. In the HelpFile property, enter a string expression that contains the path and file name of the custom Help file that you created.

    NOTE: You do not have to include the path to the Help file. However, if you do not include the path, you must store the Help file in the same folder as the database.
  5. In the HelpContextID property, type the ID number associated with a particular Help topic in your Help file.
  6. Repeat step 5 for each control on the form that you want to link to a specific Help topic.
  7. Open the form in Form view, click the What's This button, and then click one of the controls. Note that the Help topic information appears.

REFERENCES

For additional information about creating Help topic files, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

210166 ACC2000: How to Create Pop-up Context-Sensitive Help

For additional information about creating help files for an Access run-time application, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

243568 MOD2000: How to Launch a Custom Help File in a Runtime Solution

Modification Type:MajorLast Reviewed:6/28/2004
Keywords:kbhowto KB202314
©2004 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.