My first VB Blog

It may be very small but useful for VB developers.

How to Open ‘ ***.chm” file using VB

We can’t open “*.Chm “ just like ****.Hlp file. Because DialogBox can’t open .Chm files.

For Hlp Files

DlOpen.HelpFile = “C\Test.Hlp”
DlgOpen.HelpCommand = cdlHelpContents
DlgOpen.ShowHelp

But for .Chm file

DlOpen.HelpFile = “C\Test.chm”

To Open .Chm fiels we have to use “Win API calls”
The API which we are going to Use is
“ShellExecute(……………………………..)”

Private Declare Function ShellExecute Lib "shell32.dll" Alias "ShellExecuteA" _
(ByVal hWnd As Long, ByVal lpOperation As String, _
ByVal lpFile As String, ByVal lpParameters As String, _
ByVal lpDirectory As String, ByVal nShowCmd As Long) As Long

Const SW_SHOWNORMAL = 1

In side the code we have to call this.

Call ShellExecute(Me.hWnd, "open", g_sHelpDir & "\Test.chm", "", 0, SW_SHOWNORMAL)

Regards
Ravi