[lazarus] hello lazarus team

[Michal Bukovjan]

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

Marco van de Voort wrote:

>>At 14:00 18.12.01 +0100, you wrote:
>>
>>>>>>Isn't there a html component for the GTK? I think html is the
>>>>>>best format for online docs in our days, no?
>>>>>>
>>>>>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.
>>>>>
>>>>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.
>>>>
>>>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.
>>>
>>But the FPC docs don't use the .HLP format either. 
>>
>
>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.
>
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