[Lazarus] Lazarus trunk help options: CHM Help browser does not show up

Hans-Peter Diettrich DrDiettrich1 at aol.com
Fri Feb 17 19:18:18 CET 2012


Reinier Olislagers schrieb:
> On 17-2-2012 15:16, Hans-Peter Diettrich wrote:
>> Reinier Olislagers schrieb:
>>> Now going to see if I can either persuade fpdoc to spit out rtl.chm and
>>> fcl.chm, or download the latest release versions... et voila, working
>>> offline help installed for free with your Lazarus SVN copy ;) (oh.. and
>>> Graeme, with FPC source as well... SCNR...)
> 
> Thanks, DoDi,
> 
>> If you want to create the RTL and FCL docs during installation, you can
>> use according project files. These files are e.g. created by the
>> FPDocManager.
> That's news...must have not been paying attention.

Yes, it's a feature of FPC trunk only.

> What are these project files called? Can I get them when installing FPC
> only (i.e. without Lazarus)

These are XML files. You can create such projects yourself, by adding
   fpdoc ... --write-project=MyPrj.xml
to an fpdoc commandline.

>> In the case of the FPC documentation some paths have to be
>> fixed, so that the other builds can e.g. find the content files. Since
>> the FPC descriptions do not change very often, you can distribute the
>> project files together with your installer.
> Mmm, ok, I guess that answers one of my previous questions.
> 
>> Since you have to download the docs sources in either case, you also can
>> use the supplied MakeFile, of course.
> ... unless I'm overlooking something again, that requires latex to
> export to chm files??
> (eg make chm IIRC)

No. LaTeX may be required for the basic FPC docs, whose sources are 
LaTeX(?), but not for the helpfiles for units (RTL, FCL, LCL), built 
from XML docs.

> Chances of it being available on Windows, OSX, are not much higher than
> on Linux. Requiring it just to build documentation seems... excessive.
> 
>> Full offline documentation also should include the REF etc. files, which
>> cannot be created like the LCL docs. So it might be easier to download
>> the readily available help files, instead of creating these during the
>> installation.
> .... that's the solution I'm going for right now... ;)

Sometimes it requires a few steps in other directions, until we find the 
simplest solution ;-)

DoDi





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