[lazarus] Help files???

[Michael.VanCanneyt at Wisa.be]

On Tue, 25 Nov 2003, John The Ripper wrote:

> is there any way to create simple XML aka. I was having something like
> this in my mind
> 
> <UNIT>
> 	name.....
> 	<VARIABLES>
> 		<declarations>
> 			<help text>
> 			<example>
> 			<user created examples, notes etc.>
> 		</declarations>
> 	</VARIABLES>
> 	<OBJECTS>
> 		<declarations>
> 	</OBJECTS>
> </UNIT>

I think you misunderstand the concept. What you suggest here, 
is the INPUT of the fpdoc help tool. the XML it needs is similar to
what you ask for here.

You can create an empty XML skeleton/template with 'makeskel', it 
will create the XML for you, based on the pascal sources. 
Then you can fill the XML up with actual help text.

After this is done, the fpdoc tool then creates a number of output 
formats from this XML: HTML,TeX, PDF, PS etc. It has functionality 
for linking between different XML file etc etc etc.

To help in editing the XML, there is a GUI tool called 'fpde', which should
work on Windows and Linux. It too can create the Xml skeleton.

Of course should be possible to have a viewer for the XML without the need 
for fpdoc, but no-one has written that yet. It would be almost like writing
an HTML viewer, so one would be better off creating HTML and using a
standard viewer.

Clearer ?

Michael.