ewsoftware.test.ignore

Sandcastle Help File Builder

This package allows you to deploy the Sandcastle Help File Builder tools inside of a project to build help files without installing the tools manually such as on a build server. The following limitations apply:

• You must install one or more of the Reflection Data Set packages based on which platform types you need:

  .NETCore, .NETFramework, .NETMicroFramework, .NETPortable, Silverlight, WindowsPhone, WindowsPhoneApp, and/or UniversalWindows.

  If multiple versions are available for any given reflection data set package, download the latest version as it will cover all prior versions as well.

• Set the project's ComponentPath property to the package folder so that the project can find the reflection data files and any other third-party build components, plug-ins, presentation styles, etc. deployed as NuGet packages.

• Only the website, MS Help Viewer, Open XML, and markdown help file formats are supported unconditionally as there are no external tool dependencies for them.

• To build Help 1 output, the required help compiler tools and components must be installed separately. Help file builds using that formats will fail if those components are not installed.

• Any third-party build components, plug-ins, presentation styles, etc. not deployed as NuGet packages must be included within your project and must be placed within the project folder so that they can be found.

• The SHFBROOT environment variable does not need to be defined. However, the help file project must contain a conditional property that defines the relative path to the SHFB tools folder within the main PropertyGroup element.

  Example:

  $(MSBuildThisFileDirectory)..\packages\EWSoftware.SHFB.YYYY.M.D.R\Tools\

  ... other SHFB project properties ...
  

• No standalone GUI or Visual Studio support is provided for managing the help project and none of the non-essential tools or help files are included in this package in order to keep its size down to the bare minimum. If wanted, those items must be downloaded and installed from the GitHub project site using the guided installer: https://GitHub.com/EWSoftware/SHFB

See this help topic for more details on XCOPY/NuGet Build Server Deployment:

http://EWSoftware.github.io/SHFB/html/50ad2c8c-5004-4b4c-a77f-97b8c403c9f2.htm