Version 1.9.1.0 was released on July 7th, 2010
Due to changes in the Sandcastle reflection data files, you must delete any cache files used by the cached build components if you have added them to your project's ComponentConfigurations property. See the Special Folder Locations topic for how to find and remove them. They will be recreated when you build your project.
A configuration change has been made to the Cached MSDN URL References component. It must be deleted and re-added to the ComponentConfigurations property in order to get the latest settings.
If you have added the Post Transform Component to your project's ComponentConfigurations property, you will need to open its configuration and click OK to save it and refresh the configuration settings. This is required due to a change in the configuration options needed to support multiple output formats in a single build.
The Post Transform Component's outputPath element has been replaced with an outputPaths element containing one or more path elements that define the output paths to which the code colorizer style sheet, script, and image files should be copied. The configuration dialog will auto-correct the configuration the next time it is saved (see the item above).
A configuration change has been made to the Additional Reference Links plug-in to support multiple build output formats. If you have added it to your project's PlugInConfigurations property, you must open its configuration, make any necessary adjustments to its new settings and save it again.
The ProjectLinkType property is now obsolete and has been removed. Project link types are now set automatically based on the selected help file output format.
The SdkLinkType property is now obsolete and has been removed. SDK link types are now defined using the following help file format specific SDK link type properties:
HtmlSdkLinkType - HTML Help 1 SDK link type
MSHelp2SdkLinkType - MS Help 2 SDK link type
MSHelpViewerSdkLinkType - MS Help Viewer SDK link type
WebsiteSdkLinkType - Website SDK link type
By default, the above properties will all default to Msdn to generate links to online MSDN content. Review your project settings and adjust them if necessary.
Due to requirements of the MS Help Viewer output format, the build process has been modified to support multiple build output formats in a single build each with their own related set of properties (i.e. SDK link types). If you have written custom build components or plug-ins, you will need to review them to ensure that they work correctly when used with multiple output formats in a single build.
Note
Due to the help formats each loading their own copies of several of the build components and outputting a separate copy of the HTML output file, there can be a significant increase in the amount of memory and disk space usage during a build that generates more than one output format. If this is an issue, you may need to build each help format separately. This issue may be addressed in a future release.
The following BuildStep enumeration changes have been made. If you have written custom plug-ins, check them to be sure that they still behave as expected with the following build step changes:
The GenerateIntermediateTableOfContents step has been moved so that it occurs before the BuildConceptualTopics step. This is required due to an MS Help Viewer build component dependency on the toc.xml file generated by this step.
Added a new CombiningIntermediateTocFiles step in which the conceptual and API tables of contents files are combined into a single file ready for transformation into the help format-specific table of contents files. This step occurs immediately after the BuildReferenceTopics step.
The UpdateTableOfContents build step has been removed as it is obsolete.
Added support for the June 2010 release of Sandcastle.
Added full support for MS Help Viewer output. Please see the Known Issues and Limitations topic for known limitations with the Microsoft Help Viewer help format.
Support was added for installing, viewing, and removing MS Help Viewer files from within the GUI.
MS Help Viewer output includes a Help Library Manager launcher utility and sample script files that you can use to install and remove the help file. The launcher is freely distributable and may be used in your product installers to install your help viewer content. See the Help Library Manager Launcher Utility topic for more information.
The following MS Help Viewer category project properties have been added:
CatalogProductId
CatalogProductVersion
ProductTitle
SelfBranded
TocOrder
TocParentId
TocParentVersion
TopicVersion
VendorName
As a result of the changes to support MS Help Viewer, the API content can now be parented to any conceptual topic in the content layout file, not just those at the root level. API content can now be inserted before, after, or as a child of any topic. See Content Placement Options for more details.
An option was added to the conceptual content layout file editor that allows specification of a topic that will only appear in MS Help Viewer output to serve as the root content container node for all topics generated for an MS Help Viewer file. This allows a single root node to appear in the parent table of contents location rather than all topics from the help file which is the default behavior.
Fixed a bug in the designer for the SyntaxFilters property that kept changing values containing one of the standard filters to Standard.
Fixed a bug in the SHFB 1.7.0.0 file converter caused by the removed ShowFeedbackControl property.
Fixed a bug in the Version Builder Plug-In that caused the inheritance hierarchy information on base classes to be incorrect. You will now see version numbers listed in descending order which is a requirement of the version builder tool.
Fixed a bug that caused the Completion Notification plug-in to fail.
Support for an optional SHFBCOMPONENTROOT environment variable has been added when loading plug-ins and build components. The search order for loading plug-ins and build components is now to search the folder defined by SHFBCOMPONENTROOT if defined, then the SHFB installation folder, and finally the program data components and plug-ins folder. This makes XCOPY deployments, custom installations on build servers, and building and testing your own custom components and plug-ins easier.
The website output now includes a default Favorites icon. To override it, add an icon file called favicon.ico to the root of your project.
In solution file documentation sources, the defined configuration and platform values (either on the documentation source or the SHFB project) are now used to determine which projects to include from it. If a project is excluded from the build in the solution file based on the defined configuration and platform, it is now ignored and will not be included in the documentation. In addition, when a project is loaded as part of a solution file, the configuration and platform settings defined in the solution file for the project now take precedence.
All build tasks in help file builder template project files and the help file builder targets file now use fully qualified names to avoid conflicts with similarly named community tasks that may be imported indirectly through MSBuild common targets file references.
The Code Block Component will now expand environment variable references in source attribute values.
Added the Multi-Format Output Component which can be used to define a set of build components that will be executed based on a specified set of help file formats. This makes it possible to generate multiple help file output formats in one build each with differing configuration settings.
Added the MSHCComponent which is a slightly modified version of the standard Sandcastle component of the same name. This version supports a sortOrder attribute on the table of contents topic items that lets you specify the sort order for the topics. The help file builder uses this to arrange the table of contents based on the project settings.
The Version Builder Plug-In has been updated to support the new option to remove APIs no longer present in the latest versions. The default is to keep the old APIs so that the plug-in behaves as it did in prior releases. It can be changed by editing the plug-in's configuration.
When cleaning build output and clearing prior web output, access denied errors are now ignored when removing folders rather than aborting the operation. A message is logged noting the issue and the file that caused it.
Automatic entry of closing brackets, parentheses, and quotes in the text editor can be disabled in the User Preferences options. A path to an external MS Help Viewer executable can also be specified. If not set, the browser will be used to open MS Help Viewer content.
Added an option to launch the Help Library Manager for interactive use on the Documentation | View Help File menu.
A separate distribution file for SharpDevelop is no longer supplied. Version 3.2 and later now make use of the standard help file builder installation.
Thanks to Immo Landwerth for supplying the WiX setup project that is now used to create the installer for the help file builder.