Deployment of About.htm with ClickOnce

Question

I have a Win app (VB.net 2005) with an About.htm page that comes up when the user presses F1, using a HelpProvider control.

The application was deployed using ClickOnce technology. When I release a new version I have to manually copy the About.htm file from my development area to our LAN (specified by the HelpNamespace property of the HelpProvider control).

Is there a way I can include this as part of the deployment?

Thank you.

Answer 1

I think the best way is to make your Help-File a part of the Application. Take a look at this question. With this way the Help-File will be downloaded with your Click-Once application.

Answer 2

Add the file to your project and set the build action to 'content' and 'copy to output directory' to 'copy always'. Then the file will be included in the deployment when you build and deploy.

To locate it programmatically, assuming you're using winforms (because you're using vs2005), you can find it by looking for it at System.Windows.Forms.Application.StartupPath.

You can open it by doing a Process.Start("iexplore.exe", myHtmlFile). You could also make a form and show the about file in a web browser control pointing to the file as a URI.

RobinDotNet