Writing Online Help for Administrator Extension

The interface between Exchange Administrator defines a way for developers to integrate online help for their own extensions. Conceptually it is designed very simply. Online help is optional. If you don't implement online help, Exchange Administrator will display a message box indicating that help is not available when users press the Help button when your page is displayed. Help for other components such as Exchange Administrator program itself will still be available. Exchange Administrator determines the context for help depending on what is currently displayed on the screen. If your extension is displayed, then it will attempt to get help dialog from it.

Two functions are involved in this process. The HasHelpProc determines whether extension supports online help or not. If an extension supports help, then the DoHelpProc is called to display the help dialog when necessary. Both function pointers are optional and are to be returned to the Exchange Administrator in ADMIN_Initialize call if implemented.

Ext/MyExtWithMAPI sample has a very primitive message box help to illustrate the concept.

[ Contents | Home ]