[Lazarus] Extending FCL documentation

[Graeme Geldenhuys]

On 9 February 2012 09:53, Hans-Peter Diettrich wrote:
>
>> So no, Help and Documentation could very well be the same think. Just
>> use the right format for the job.
>
> You confuse the structure (and content) of documentation with the file type.

Not at all.


> When you write a book, you can store it in Word, HTML, PDF or whatever
> format you like. But such a book will hardly be usable for context sensitive
> help. Likewise you can merge all help topics into one document, but I'd not
> call the result a "book".

And this is where you are wrong. INF can serve both purposes without
problems (hence the reason I chose it for fpGUI). I reviewed a lot of
help file / ebook-type formats before I settled on INF.

OS/2 had two "help file" formats. They are actually exactly the same
format but with different file extensions and one bit field that
toggles between them. HLP vs INF. The only real difference is that
they signal the help viewer how to display them. If it is a HLP file
(normally used as application help), the help viewer was 25% of the
screen width. When it is a INF file, the help viewer took up 80% of
the screen width.

Also, I have numerous books (yes, with chapters etc) and magazines
published by companies (eg: IBM, Speedsoft etc) or organizations in
INF format too.  INF was probably the first "ebook" format around - at
least long before ePub and Mobi. OS/2 even had a "Help Library"
folder, which contained lots of INF books.

This is why I say INF is truly flexible. It can be a book when needed,
a replacement for text files (eg: readme.txt etc), but it can also be
used as application help in software.


-- 
Regards,
  - Graeme -


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fpGUI - a cross-platform Free Pascal GUI toolkit
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