Is there a way to automate generating the documentation from a function panel?

[pdobratz]

We have some DLL projects which contain function panel (.fp) files.  We link a help file to the DLL so that we can call up the help file when using TestStand.  As part of the build, we have to manually run Options -> Generate Documentation -> HTML.  Then we load the .hhp file into the Microsoft tool HTML Help Workshop and select File -> Compile to generate a .chm file.  Then in LabWindows/CVI we can build our DLL with links to the .chm help file.

Has anyone been able to automate this?  It seems like it would be convenient to generate the help file in the Pre-build actions section of the Build Steps for the project.

Note: this slightly more convoluted process of generating the .chm file replaces the old method of generating a .hlp file from within LabWindows/CVI.

[LuisG · Accepted solution]

Yes, you can use the CVI ActiveX function GenHtmlHelpFromFPFile to accomplish the same thing programmatically. If you're not familiar with the CVI ActiveX interface, you can find out more about it in the CVI online help by navigating to the Using LabWindow/CVI>>Accessing the LabWindows/CVI ActiveX Server Interface help topic.

Luis

[pdobratz]

Thanks, Luis.  After generating the ActiveX interface to the CVI server, I was able to write a small command line program that calls GenHtmlHelpFromFPFile.

To generate the .chm file from the .hhp file, there's an executable provided by the HTML Help Workshop (hhc.exe).  It only seems to work if you run it from the HTML Help Workshop directory, though.  We have the following Build Steps:

cd "C:\Program Files\HTML Help Workshop"
hhc.exe %CVIPROJDIR%\name_of_fp_file.fp