Win32 documentation in CHM?

[Robin Becker]

It seems the Gods are proposing to distribute the documentation and help
for Python-2.3.1 in .chm form. I particularly detest .chm and much
prefer .html as it works across all platforms. Additionally by having a
single index.html for all of the various bits of Python help I can link
in things like Pmw, PIL and Quick Guide etc with a simple text editor.

The argument is made that .chm is a better mechanism (more searchable
indexable etc) for help/documentation than html. Is that really so? HTML
is at least an open standard.

 

[Michael Peuser]

It seems the Gods are proposing to distribute the documentation and help
for Python-2.3.1 in .chm form. I particularly detest .chm and much
prefer .html as it works across all platforms. Additionally by having a
single index.html for all of the various bits of Python help I can link
in things like Pmw, PIL and Quick Guide etc with a simple text editor.

The argument is made that .chm is a better mechanism (more searchable
indexable etc) for help/documentation than html. Is that really so? HTML
is at least an open standard.

chm is more compact and nicely packaged. It in fact is basically nothing but
html and you can unpack it if you want. There are lots of tools - look for
arCHMage e.g. which is a Unix chm viewer and decompiler...

Kindly
Michael P

 

[James Kew]

The argument is made that .chm is a better mechanism (more searchable
indexable etc) for help/documentation than html. Is that really so?

I've certainly found it so in the ActiveState distribution, which packages
the Python docs, plus selected third-party docs -- win32all, Dive Into
Python -- into a unified HTML Help package. Very, very handy to be able to
quickly look things up in a common index, or search across the whole lot.

(Still waiting for a 2.3 ActiveState distro, though...)

James

 

[Robin Becker]

I've certainly found it so in the ActiveState distribution, which packages
the Python docs, plus selected third-party docs -- win32all, Dive Into
Python -- into a unified HTML Help package. Very, very handy to be able to
quickly look things up in a common index, or search across the whole lot.

(Still waiting for a 2.3 ActiveState distro, though...)

James

the previous poster mentioned decompilers, can one then add other links
and then recompile with such beasts?

I like being able to down load someone's pdf slides on meta classes
into python/doc/xtras and then add a link to them to the main help
index. I am also fairly religious about not using IE.

 

[=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Bernard_Delm=E9e?=]

the previous poster mentioned decompilers, can one then add other links

and then recompile with such beasts?

On Windows, just use the MS HTML Help Workshop:

http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=14188

 

[=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Bernard_Delm=E9e?=]

I've certainly found it so in the ActiveState distribution, which packages

the Python docs, plus selected third-party docs -- win32all, Dive Into
Python -- into a unified HTML Help package. Very, very handy to be able to
quickly look things up in a common index, or search across the whole lot.

(Still waiting for a 2.3 ActiveState distro, though...)

The pythlp.py script, available at:

http://www.orgmf.com.ar/condor/pytstuff.html

still seems to work fine for python 2.3
It'll create an HTM Help project for you, incorporating all std docs,
which you then need to compile to CHM using the HTML Help Workshop:

http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=14188

Cheers,

Bernard.

 

[logistix at cathoderaymission.net]

It seems the Gods are proposing to distribute the documentation and help
for Python-2.3.1 in .chm form. I particularly detest .chm and much
prefer .html as it works across all platforms. Additionally by having a
single index.html for all of the various bits of Python help I can link
in things like Pmw, PIL and Quick Guide etc with a simple text editor.

The argument is made that .chm is a better mechanism (more searchable
indexable etc) for help/documentation than html. Is that really so? HTML
is at least an open standard.

I don't think there is any intention to discontinue generation of
HTML, PDF, and other formats of the documentation. You can currently
get it here:

http://www.python.org/ftp/python/doc/2.3/

and presumably http://www.python.org/ftp/python/doc/2.3.1/ once it's
released.

They are just changing the Windows default install to provide standard
Windows help files.

Windows is currently the only platform where documentation is
installed by default. A standard 'make && make install' on ohter
doesn't do anything with the documentation. Everyone else has to
download it anyways, or use the magical incantations necessary to
generate it from the LaTeX source.

 

[Robin Becker]

You cannot have used a properly constructed .chm file and seriously question
whether it's more searchable. Of course it is, including seemingly
instantaneous Boolean, proximity, wildcard, and similarity searches, across
the entire doc set with one query. I don't know of any way to search thru
more than a thousand .html files that's even arguably comparable; e.g., grep
is a slow & painful joke in comparison.

amazingly I still disagree, somehow I still prefer the html files.
Perhaps I just hate IE.

 

[Jussi Jumppanen]

.....

amazingly I still disagree, somehow I still prefer the html files.
Perhaps I just hate IE.

The CHM search-abilty is definitely a plus, but I am also have my
resivations. In fact I think the WinHelp file format was a much
better help system. The WinHelp view was much faster loading, less
likely to crash and also just as easily searched. The original
HtmlHelp viewer was a real step backwards in comparison.

Grnated, the newer versions of the HTML viewer are more stable, but
they are still very demanding in terms of system memory. Try using
the Microsoft MSDN and watch your system grind to a halt

Even today the Zeus Quick Help keywords searching is still a lot
faster if the source of the keyword is a WinHelp file compared to
a HtmlHelp file.

Jussi Jumppanen
Author of: Zeus for Windows (All new version 3.90 out now)
"The C/C++, Cobol, Java, HTML, Python, PHP, Perl programmer's editor"
Home Page: http://www.zeusedit.com