 | Sharing Help Templates Across Projects |
One of the chief motivations for customizing a driver help file using templates is the ability to re-use those templates across other driver projects. Since the help template is simply a collection of files, making help templates available to other driver project involves nothing more than copying the help template files to a special folder that Nimbus recognizes.
To create a shared help template
Create a new driver project or open an existing project that can be used to perform the desired help template customizations.
ImportantAlways edit help template files within a specific driver project, as each driver project contains its own private copy of the help template files. It is critical to never directly edit the pre-built help templates that ship with Nimbus.
Perform the desired help template modifications. Take care to use replacement tags for things like the driver name and driver output file names, rather than hardcoding names for a specific driver. See the topics under the Working with Help Templates for details on customizing help templates.
Build the driver help file and make sure it appears as desired.
Locate the folder where the custom Nimbus help templates are stored.
<ProgramData>\Pacific MindWorks\Nimbus\<version>\HelpTemplates
Create a new folder in this directory that indicates the name of your custom help template. The name of this folder will be displayed in the Template tab of the help project properties, which is used to switch betweeen driver help templates.
Create a subdirectory below your new template directory named either IviNet, IviCom, or IviC, depending upon the driver type for which you have created your custom template.
Copy the entire contents Template folder of the driver help file project and paste it into the IviNet, IviCom, or IviC folder below your custom template folder.
For example, if you follow the above procedure in order to create a custom help template named Acme Help for an IVI.NET driver, you should end up with a directory path as follows:
<ProgramData>\Pacific MindWorks\Nimbus\<version>\HelpTemplates\Acme Help\IviNet
The contents of that folder which will match the contents of your driver help project's Template folder.
See Also