But the FPC docs don't use the .HLP format either. And the VC help system is nothing else than packed HTML.

Hello,

gtkhtml may be a little a moving target, but maybe not anymore, since it is integrated in the Evolution 1.x (and Gnome help system relies on that as well, I suppose).

And as for the dependencies - this is what rpm (deb) packages are supposed to be for :-)
I think the gtkhtml is now or will be a part of any distro that supports Gnome, so this should not be a big problem. (most distro aimed at desktop will include it).
And Qt/KDE may have something similar as well (Konqueror), so Lazarus could support multiple engines just as in case of GTK/Qt/Windows component set.

Michal

Le Thursday 20 December 2001 13:15, Florian Klaempfl a �crit :

Ah, i did'nt know it was possible.

I had a look on gtkhtml, and after little problems (missing libs...), i installed it. Whaou ! It's really fast !

There is still one problem in my opinion : gtkhtml needs a lot of various libraries, which will not be installed as default on a standard computer.

But i will try to use it, i'll post again here when i got something to show.

By the way, has anyone allready made the C->pas conversion of these files, like in the various gtk* ? If not, i will try to do it.

Le Tuesday 18 December 2001 22:52, a �crit :

After thinking a little, i agree. We need tables !

That's just what i wanted to say...

Well, i see many of you want an html-based online help. I will think at it, and try to do something.

Because the .HLP could be used natively on win32, while afaik it doesn't have disadvantages on the other platforms. The files are internally ocmpressed, indexed via a btree directory, iow the structure seems reasonably smart.

[ Charset ISO-8859-1 unsupported, converting... ]

No. Also *nix filesystems with a large blocksize suffer from this. NTFS also starts to increase block size when partitions grow larger.

I still don't think that it is worth to pursue something that is not native on Windows. So either the .HLP I suggest, or we still have to convert the zipped .htm to something native on Windows. (iow have two sets)

That has nothing to do with bias for Windows, but on *nix there is no universal help system. KDE and Gnome are unusable, since not universal, and too heavy for machines that could still run Lazarus, but not KDE (I'd rather have a browser based solution than)

But this matters only for old file systems like FAT32, no? In the worth case, the htmls could be zipped.

You mean for the help system itself? Maybe, I don't know how generic the code is.

Personally I hate browser based help, it is too slow, and would be sad to slow down a relative fast system with it.

I have been thinking for a while about this too, and came down on the .hlp format.

Reading/writing the .hlp format is no problem, but one obtains a kind of dumbed down RTF. How difficult would it be to render something like that?

Hello list,

I would recommend HTML.
There is a library called gtkhtml, which is quite fast, knows basic rendering, and is used for help in Gnome, or HTML rendering in Ximian Evolution. On Windows, one can embed IE ActiveX control and use that. You can also view HTML source files are human readable, which may be great advantage against those binrary HLP formats.

The docs may also be written in TeX, for example, and then rendered to multiple targets, including PDF and HTML.

Also it is very easy to integrate context links into the help files in your components.

I think .HLP format is dead, and only supported by Microsoft (maybe they even also drop this format?).

Michal Bukovjan

Tables too, take it from me. :-)

- accept hypertext links - that's all.

Isn't the above what HTML is all about ? What does HTML have more ? (Not counting Frames/Javascript)

Michael.

It would be pretty much the same as rendering the docs from HTML to RTF, and then compile them to HLP I think.

But one only needed a GTK simplified RTF widget for *nix, while windows can use it natively.

Le Sunday 16 December 2001 15:01, Martin Waldenburg a �crit :

Well, i really don't like using microsoft format...

I'll try to make something by myself, and you will say me if you like it or not.

I hope it will be ready in a few weeks.

Le Saturday 15 December 2001 08:59, Mattias Gaertner a �crit :

Please, not the default browser ! It's so slow...

Maybe we could use the windows .hlp format, i don't know how it works in details.

I think it's possible to make a little help system. I could try to code it, if you think it can be usable.

Denis,

I would like to advise you not to try to create a new help formats, especially in the situation when a number of those currently exist, HTML is, or may be, in fact quite simple (after all, it was created to do exactly what you say above!), and renderers do exist for this format, which is defined by the W3 consortium. There have been a lot of efforts to handle all aspects of modern systems! Just think aboout:

- human readable format of sources
- convertibility to other formats
- industry standard
- standardized hypertext markup notation
- multiple languages and charset encodings
- existing indexing and search engines
- XML compatible (XHTML DTDs)
- separation of content and format via CSS (great thing!)
- multiplatformness
- plethora of tools for authoring, editing, serving, cleaning, formatting, ...

I think there are many, many more advantages, here are just few I could think about.

If you want something more challenging, try learning DocBook format, and create HTML versions from that. Now that would be something!

Why not just take gtkhtml libs and use that? It does not support latest what-not in HTML (for that, one would use slower, although *MUCH* more sophisticated Mozilla/Gecko engine), but the gtkhtml engine is *FAST*

I have written some .HLP files before, and I write a lot of HTML today, and believe me, HLP is such a nuissance - unless you have proper tools, (available on Windows platform only), you will not get far. Even Microsoft is converting to HTML help as well. HLP files are obsolete (and God thanks for that).

Just my two cents. Please think twice before starting.

Michal Bukovjan

PM Michal Bukovjan wrote

I think .HLP format is dead, and only supported by Microsoft (maybe they even also drop this format?).

Even .CHM is dead, to be replaced by Help 2.0. See http://www.digitext.co.uk/public/online_help/help20.htm for more details. Apparently it will be XML based.

For docs, not for help. Help needs to be faster.

And if we have to make our own (faster) HTML renderer, the advantage of HTML disappears.

One of the core reasons of .hlp is also that it is at least native on win32.

GTK on win32 is not really top of the bill.

Le Tuesday 18 December 2001 23:04, Michal Bukovjan a �crit :

But one thing is bad : html help need a lot of files (one for each help page), it's a waste of memory on hard drives...

But you're right, this is THE standard, on every platform, and it's the most important point.

Yes, i did it too, and i have the same feeling.

Just my two cents. Please think twice before starting.

Too late, i started writing something, but it's not important. After all, i could use my own help system in my own programs ;-)

Afaik, that is the same I was playing with a while ago, I'm now porting some WINE code to substitute lzexpand.dll code on non windows.

I found it via wotsit.

But I think the FP help system would be a usable base ...

Le Tuesday 18 December 2001 12:30, Florian Klaempfl a �crit :

Well, for the fun i will have doing it, i just want to try making my own help system ;-)

And i don't like very much the html format, in my opinion it is too complicated for the very basic fonction we need : display help files.

In my opinion, online help just must :
- show text and images (perhaps tables too, i'm not sure)
- accept hypertext links
- that's all.

Before you start duplicating things that are already written, have a look at the Free Pascal docs, and specifically at the GTK things that are published:

http://www.freepascal.org/docs.html
http://www.freepascal.org/packages/gtk.html

Michael.

My name is Ron. I'm excited about this project and want to help. My pascal skills need development however. So I've decided that perhaps I can help by writing some documentation/tutorials. That's exactly what I have started doing. If someone else has started writing tutorials please let me know so that I don't duplicate your efforts. I plan to release one pascal lesson weekly (on Mondays) until subject matter covers pascal objects and some basic GTK programming with pascal. Also I'm writing with the new Linux user in mind. If possible, as I publish, I would really appreciate constructive criticism. Thank you for you efforts and hopefully for letting me be a part of your team.

Ron

Let's just keep the option open. I'm playing with it. Better to choose the best as default from several systems. IOW a plug system as in

And the VC help system is nothing else than packed HTML.

Yes, but they use that slow mega-browser thingy, and they use a lot of extensions I'd rather not do that, and then I don't see the use of keeping html html.

Also since we have to pack it anyway, because of size and handling considerations.

So it amounts to support .CHM (or something similar) or .HLP, and for both internal formats (htm and RTF) parsers and renderers are available.

Then I'd rather support .HLP.

Actually, HTML is slow only when you have to start a multimegasized browser that is capable of rendering all the bells and whistles of modern web pages. If you keep the complexity of HTML in help-files to the minimum, it's an easy task to write a simple and fast renderer for that. This would also bring the advantage of having the same documentation online.

/jarto

Le Saturday 15 December 2001 14:59, Marco van de Voort a �crit :

Yes, but how is a .hlp file coded ?
Is there any documentation about this format ?

Great!
I'm waiting for such a person for many months. Seems to be xmas is near.

There is already a lot of help material for freepascal. See www.freepascal.org and lookout for the newest version. They have updated many documents in the last few weeks.

The missing part is of course the help system (I prefer an online help system) and the docs for the LCL and the IDE. I think the Delphi help is a good example. (Kylix help is a bad one).

Has anyone an idea how the online help system should work? html, remote control the default browser, devhelp, own help system ...?

Mattias

http://www.helpmaster.com/hlp-developmentaids-helpfile.htm http://www.helpmaster.com/hlp-developmentaids-helpdeco.htm

Help Decompiler 2.1

Dissects HLP help files of Windows 3.0, 3.1, 3.11, and '95 and many MVB multi media viewer titles into all files required for a rebuild using the appropriate help compiler HC30, HC31, HCP, HCW, HCRTF, WMVC, MMVC or MVC.

The package contains the HelpDeco, a desribtion of file formats (HLP, ANN, SHG, MRB), ZapRes (removes resolution Information from BMP, SHG and MRB) and SplitMrb (splits MRB into the included files).

Martin

Isn't there a html component for the GTK? I think html is the best format for online docs in our days, no?

What about "ripping" the help system of the FPC text mode IDE? It can and .html

I really think that doing help with something else than HTML would be the wrong way.