Project File (.hhp) Structure

The HTML Help project file is simply a text file named with an .hhp extension and written to follows a particular structure. The minimum requirements are the section headers [OPTIONS] and [FILES] on separate lines. Once you add at least a few HTML files to the [FILES] section, the HTML Help Workshop and compiler will use this bare file to create an HTML Help project with the same name as the .hhp file, making its own assumptions about certain basic project defaults concerning version and language compatibility.

A simple but useful project file would take the following form shown below. Note that this is a variation of the hhp file used to create the tree-planting project described in chapter 2:

[OPTIONS]
Compatibility=1.1 or later
Compiled file=Tree.chm
Contents file=Tree.hhc
Default Window=main
Default topic=Content\Main.htm
Display compile progress=No
Full-text search=Yes
Index file=Tree.hhk
Language=0x409 English (United States)

[WINDOWS]
main="Tree-Planting","Tree.hhc","Tree.hhk",
"Content\Main.htm",,,,,,0x2120,
200,0x3006,[500,0,1050,400],,,,,,,0

[FILES]
Content\SantaCruz.htm
Content\Ch_Site.htm
Content\Ch_Species.htm
Content\Choose.htm
Common\Tree.js
Common\Tree.css
Common\Graphics\ZoneMap.gif
Common\Graphics\Oak.jpg

The [OPTIONS] section is a fairly self-explanatory set of options defining such things as the project's Compatibility with earlier versions of the HTML Help Workshop and compiler, the name of the Compiled file that is output after compiling; the name of the Contents file and Index file used in the project, etc.

Similarly, the [FILES] section lists all the topic and graphic files contained in the project. Note that it is best to also list any JavaScript (.js) and cascading style sheets (.css) required for the project, to be sure that the compiler includes them in the finished file.

The [WINDOWS] section is more complex. (Note that each window definition is typed on a single, unbroken line; this line is broken above only for display purposes.) It defines a variety of parameters about the window in which your completed HTML Help file appears. These parameters are defined in detail on pp. 244-252 of the book; a chart giving the basic information is included in this Web site.