Adding Your Own Help Files in the Help Browser :: GUI Reference for Desktop Tools and Development Environment (Desktop Tools and Development Environment)

Desktop Tools and Development Environment

Adding Your Own Help Files in the Help Browser

If you offer a toolbox or a collection of M-files to other users, you can include HTML help files for your toolbox and provide access to them from the MATLAB Help browser.

In summary, the Help browser determines what information to display using info.xml files that reside on the search path or in the current directory. You create an info.xml file for your toolbox, which includes a pointer to your HTML help files. The term toolbox is used here for convenience, but the same concept applies to a blockset or any name you give to your M-file collection.

If you also want your toolbox to appear on the Start button, put the Help browser and Start button information into a single info.xml file (see Adding Your Own Toolboxes to the Start Button). The example presented here assumes you want your toolbox to appear in the Help browser but not in the Start button.

You can view and modify the files for this example, which are located in matlab/help/techdoc/matlab_env/examples. They add help for the SpecSim (Example) Toolbox. Copy the examples directory to a new location to which you have write access, and then add the new examples directory to the search path.

In the Editor/Debugger, create an info.xml file in a directory that is on the search path or in the current directory. For this example, you can open the example file, helpinfo.xml, and save it as info.xml to use it as the basis for this example.
Refresh the Help browser by selecting Start -> Desktop Tools -> View Source Files, and then click Refresh Start Button in the resulting Start Button Configuration Files dialog box.
Open the Help browser to see the sample entries for the SpecSim (Example) Toolbox. Be sure to disable the product filter, or select the SpecSim (Example) Toolbox in the product filter if the product filter is enabled. Use Preferences -> Help to access the product filter.

The contents of the info.xml file add the SpecSim (Example) help to the Help browser:

<productinfo
  xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
  xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="optional">
<?xml-stylesheet type="text/xsl"href="optional"?>

<matlabrelease>14</matlabrelease>
<name>SpecSim (Example)</name>
<type>toolbox</type>
<icon>$toolbox/matlab/icons/book_mat.gif<icon>
<help_location>../examples</help_location>

</productinfo>


XML Tag	Description	Value in Example	Notes
`<matlabrelease>`	`not used`	`14`	MATLAB release.
`<name>`	Title of toolbox	`SpecSim (Example)`	The name of your toolbox as it will appear in the Help browser.
`<type>`	`matlab simulink toolbox blockset other`	`toolbox`	Determines where the toolbox is located in the Help browser Contents pane. Types are presented in the order shown here, with `matlab` at the top and `other` at the bottom of the contents. Within a type, items are presented alphabetically. For the example, SpecSim will appear with other toolboxes.
`<icon>`	Icon in Help Contents pane	`$toolbox/matlab/ icons/book_mat.gif`	Use standard icons provided with MATLAB, as in this example, or use your own. This value uses a relative pathname: `$toolbox` is the `matlab/toolbox` directory.
`<help_location>`	Location of help files	`../examples`	Location of HTML help files you provide for your toolbox. You can specify a relative path, that is, relative to the location of the `info.xml` file.
`<list> <listitem> ...`	Entries for Start button	None	If you also want your toolbox to appear in the Start button, add at least one `listitem`. For details, see Adding Your Own Toolboxes to the Start Button.

Put the help files listed in the following table into the directory you specified for help_location in the info.xml file.


Filename	Required or Optional	Description
`helptoc.xml`	Required	The file the Help browser needs to display hierarchical entries in the Contents pane for your toolbox. It references your HTML help files. A `helptoc.xml` file is provided for the example.
`helpindex.xml`	Optional	Provides entries for the Index pane in the Help browser. View the `helpindex.xml` file for any MathWorks product you installed to see how you can create a similar file for your own toolbox.
`helpsearch.db`	Optional	Provides entries for the Search pane in the Help browser. For details on creating this file, contact MathWorks Technical Support.
HTML help files	Required	HTML files containing the help for your toolbox. At least one of these is referenced by `helptoc.xml`. HMTL files are provided for the example.

Refresh the Help browser by selecting Start -> Desktop Tools -> View Source Files, and then click Refresh Start Button in the dialog box.
For additional examples, see the info.xml files for MathWorks products:

Select Start -> Desktop Tools -> View Source files.
From the resulting Start Button Configuration Files dialog box, select a product.
Click Open to view its info.xml file.

Adding Your Own Toolboxes to the Start Button Adding Your Own Demos