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When creating an application you might consider attaching a help file, depending on the targeted public. These can be plain TXT files, built in the application or online references. Sandcastle Help File Builder is a powerful application designed to let you create a complex help manual to integrate in your programs.

The application is not exactly what you would expect for something of its kind. Right from the setup process you need to pay extra attention due to all the requirements that need to be met.

Ironically enough, you might need to spend a considerable amount of time with the provided help in order to get an idea of what the application provides.

Unlike the name suggests, the application only provides the means to patch and wrap up help documentation created with Sandcastle tools, one of the prerequisites from the setup process.

You can open up already compiled help files and thoroughly have them analyzed. The project properties side panel lets you snoop through build, summaries, missing tags, paths, components and a few more categories, each with its own set of options.

You can view and handle items withing the project from a dedicated explorer. Documentation sources and references are amongst the main elements that can be handled. However, you can populate the list with custom items which can be script files, site map, style sheet, resource item files and more.

For all items found in the project explorer panel you need to properly configure build actions, which determine how these are put to use. You can set any of them to several actions ranging from but not limited to content, image, code snippets, tokens or site map.

Taking everything into consideration, we can say that Sandcastle Help File Builder is definitely a tool that comes in handy to advanced users. Even though it might take some getting used to, it provides a large variety of customizable features so that you can include all there is to know about your future application.