[Lazarus] Lazarus helpfiles

[Mark Morgan Lloyd]

Graeme Geldenhuys wrote:

>> "Offline help" with two links, the first is
>> http://wiki.freepascal.org/Installing_Help_in_the_IDE#Installing_CHM_Help_for_The_RTL.2C_FCL_and_LCL_in_the_Lazarus_IDE
>> which I think everybody agrees is relevant (even if it needs work), the
>> second is a direct link to
>> http://fpgui.sourceforge.net/docview_ide_integration.shtml which- as part of
>> a completely different project- isn't.
> 
> Ah, ok, now I understand what you are talking about - though I'm using
> an old version of Lazarus IDE, so I don't see what you see. Well, I
> don't have commit access to SVN, so don't look at me. I guess some
> Lazarus developer thought the DocView + INF solution could be useful
> to somebody, so it was worth mentioning it. After all, I went through
> the trouble of building lcl.inf and making it available for download
> from the fpGUI file downloads section on SourceForge - and I don't
> even use LCL. I guess it's a simple case of "I scratch your back, you
> scratch my back". ;-)

And believe me, we all appreciate your hard work :-)

One thing does occur to me, and that is that it would probably be 
appropriate if the Lazarus developers set up the .../docs/index.html 
page so that all Wiki links were to individual pages (even if the Wiki 
subsequently redirected these). That would ensure that minor changes to 
the Wiki, even though self-consistent, couldn't screw up the Lazarus 
IDE... after all they're separate projects so should have well-defined 
interfaces.

Point of information: you're obviously correct in pointing out that .inf 
files were used by OS/2, but IBM also used them for later versions of 
PC-DOS. I've also noticed recently that datasets with the same extension 
have a comparable function in at least some versions of IBM's CMS 
operating system: I've made no attempt to determine if the formats are 
remotely compatible (remote being the operative term, since the CMS ones 
are obviously EBCDIC :-)

-- 
Mark Morgan Lloyd
markMLl .AT. telemetry.co .DOT. uk

[Opinions above are the author's, not those of his employers or colleagues]