[lazarus] Context sensitive help

[Mattias Gaertner]

On Sat, 12 Apr 2003 01:11:12 +0200 (CEST)
marcov at stack.nl (Marco van de Voort) wrote:

> > But then we must decide that the official help system for Lazarus will
> > be HTML files (or whatever.)  I wasn't ready to make that judgement
> > call.
> 
> Personally I don't think that HTML or not is that big of a problem. Sure,
> something else is more efficient, but doesn't matter much.
> 
> However HTML with an own small subset interpreter, or a 30 MB footprint
> browser, that is the dilemma.
> 
> So while I'm not against HTML, I don't think regular browsers are an
> option. To slow, requires too many resources.

The alternatives are:

a)
Using a small browser: for instance Dillo - small, fast, needs only gtk+
(not gnome).

b)
Creating our own help browser. The TurboPower InternetPro component
(TIpHtmlPanel) in components/turbopower_ipro/ already works for simple HTML
pages (i.e. no images). So, we have a HTML viewer component for the content,
a TTreeView for the TOC, TSynEdit for the examples.


It would nice to restart the discussion about the IDE helpsystem. I think,
extendable is the keyword. Anyone should be able to easily add some help
texts and send them to one of the developers, and adding the text should be
as easy as applying a diff. That's why we need editing tools and a simple
format. 


Mattias