This class is a dictionary that associates UI elements to MapItem objects that specify a help topic to display and the user action that causes the display (control getting focus, mouse hovering).

This class allows you to add items, remove items, and obtain a count of the items in the collection. The TopicMap class has members that allow users to check whether the map has changed since it was created and to persist the map to and from XML.

It can contain items of two different types: MapItemType.Dynamic and MapItemType.Static. Map items with dynamic type are created in authoring mode, and only items of this type can be saved to an XML file with the Save() method and then loaded with the Load() method. As opposed to dynamic map items, static map items are created at design time and aren't saved to or loaded from XML file.

Dynamic map items use a "control path" string (the name of the UI element itself prepended with the names of all its ancestors up to the form level) as the UI element identifier. So, if you include controls that are created dynamically, at run time, you need to call the Refresh() method that finds UI elements by their "control path" and adds them to the dynamic help system. As the controls on the form can be created dynamically, you may need to call the Refresh() method more than once (or, for example, it can be done on timer).