Location of Help File and SQLDMO

[Devin McMahon]

I am finishing an add-in that I would like to deploy with Packaging
Wizard.

I have two questions:

1. The user will be able to choose an AppPath when installing with
P/W. Microsoft recommends that you use the AppPath to locate the Help
file when you are calling the Help file, for example with
Application.Help. However, if I want to use context sensitive help,
doesn't that rely on the Help file property of the project and if so,
how do I feed the path of the help file to a compiled project after it
has been installed? Should I hard code my help file path in the
package so I can use the Help File property of the VBA Project??

2. I my app uses SQLDMO for a small portion of the application. I
would like to re-distribute the SQL DMO files. Again, I see many
articles about what files to include, but don't they have to be
registered? Is that something I would need to code into the package
as well? Can I skip installing them if they are already installed
(i.e. target machine has SQL EM or SQL CLient tools installed)

Thank you

 

[Robin Hammond]

Devin,

1a. You don't need to hard code it as such, but do install it to your app
directory. If the user presses a help command in your app, you simply call a
sub with a parameter for the help context ID. All the forms in my add-in
have a help button, as well as a help button on my toolbar.

e.g.
'Pressing help in a form triggers this call
RunHelp 99 '99 is help context ID relevant to whatever is running

Sub RunHelp(nContextID As Integer)
Dim strhelpfile As String
strhelpfile = ThisWorkbook.Path & "\HelpFile.hlp"
Application.Help strhelpfile, nContextID
End Sub

I built my help file using a program called Helpmatic Pro. Reasonably priced
and not too complicated, but it is not a trivial exercise.

1b. I think you'll find that the PD wizard has been supplanted by the Visual
Studio Installer. You can download a copy off the ms site.

2. I can't remember how the PD wizard handles registration, but the VSI will
allow you to package any redistributables with the option of registering
them on install, delete or not on uninstall (equally important), etc, and
specify target directory. It works fairly efficiently with a few drawbacks.
There is no capacity to launch an exe file as part of the install for
example that would allow some custom routines.

Yours,

Robin Hammond
www.enhanceddatasystems.com
Check out our XspandXL add-in