Creating a Presentation Style Component

Sandcastle comes with some standard presentation styles used to apply formatting and layout to each generated topic. With the code-based API, it is unlikely that you will need to create a full presentation style to make minor modifications to its layout or to add support for new sections or elements. These types of changes can be implemented using simple help file builder plug-ins. Creating a full presentation style is likely only necessary when you want to make a significant number of changes to the way it is generated that cannot be handled via plug-ins.

The help file builder supports custom presentation styles and will make them available via the Presentation Style property. More information and updated presentation style project templates will be provided in a future release.

Below are some examples of the changes that can be made to a presentation style through a plug-in.

• Reorder API topic sections, remove API topic sections, add support for new MAML or API topic sections, or replace the handlers for existing sections.

• Add support for new MAML or API topic elements or replace the handlers for existing elements.

• Add support for additional style sheets, scripts, and localized resource item files.

• Register additional startup script or script for specific elements.

• Modify or add to the language-specific text elements.

• Modify a topic before and/or after it has been rendered prior to it being saved.

• Modify a topic section after it has been rendered.

• Specify an alternate topic template or element templates for those that support them.

Refer to the Presentation Style Mods Plug-In project on GitHub for some working examples. If you do not see a particular case demonstrated, create a work item in that project or the help file builder project requesting more information and an example of how to implement it.

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