NCHB Help Builder

Online Help tool for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central Extensions.
Current Version: NCHB 2.0.8.

☰ Contents

General

• NCHB Help Builder
  NCHB Help Builder was mainly designed to create Online Help for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central Extensions. However, it is also possible to create Online Help that is not related to Business Central. An example of this is the help you are reading right now...

Preparations

• How the Help Builder works
  Every help project basically consists of a collection of normal text files in which the help text for the different help topics is stored...
• Set up AL Extension
  So that the online help can be called from a Business Central Extension by the user, the links to the online help must be specified in the app.json of the Extension...
• Set up Visual Studio Code
  The help should be written in Visual Studio Code...

Write Help

• Basics

• • Create Topics
    The Help Builder requires that the individual help files for each language are grouped together in one folder (2 characters, lower case)...
  • Suggest Help Text from AL File
    Via the Suggest Help Text from AL File Command a help topic can be generated from an AL object (page, pageextension, report oder xmlport)...
  • Ghostwriter
    With the NCHB Ghostwriter, a suggestion for a complete online help or for newly added AL objects can be created within a very short time...
  • Topic Links & External Links
    Links between the help topics can be added using the snippet _TopicLink...
  • Topic Redirections
    Redirections of help topics can be realized by specifying another help file in the first line of a help file...
  • Create Table of Contents
    Every help project needs a table of contents which is created in a separate file named index.nchb...
  • Index-driven Approach
    Until now, the text to be displayed for topic headers and topic links was always specified directly in the help topic...
  • Spell Check
    For spell checking the Visual Studio Code Extension Code Spell Checker is recommended...

• Extended

• • Notes
    Notes can be added using the _Note snippets...
  • Lists
    Bulleted lists can be added using the snippet _List...
  • Tables
    Tables can be added using the _Table snippets...
  • Images
    Images can be added using the _Image snippet...
  • Animated Images (GIF)
    If animated images are inserted (file extension .gif), basically the same things must be observed as for normal ...
  • Videos
    Videos can be linked either indirectly via navax.app or directly (not recommended)...
  • Page Breaks
    When printing the help or when creating a PDF, a page break is inserted for each help topic...
  • Display Screen/Print
    With <span class=hideonprint> or <span class=hideonscreen> elements can be displayed either only on the screen or only when printing...
  • Source Code
    Source Code can be added using the _SourceCode snippets...
  • Create Release Notes
    Release Notes can be added using the _ReleaseNotes snippets...

Upload Help

• Upload Help to navax.app
  In order for the help to be available online, the help project must be uploaded to navax.app...

Appendix

• Release Notes