From: marshall@tfh.enet.dec.com (Hunting the Snark)
Subject: Re: Help engine replacement for WINHELP.EXE
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
Date: Tue, 11 Aug 1992 20:36:41 GMT


In article <ys2mf4l.garyd@netcom.com>, garyd@netcom.com (Gary Dietz) writes...
>In article <z21mc6m.ergo@netcom.com> ergo@netcom.com (Isaac Rabinovitch) writes:
>>In <w1ym8xa.garyd@netcom.com> garyd@netcom.com (Gary Dietz) writes:
>>>> Why not just use WINHELP?
>>>Well, quite frankly, the windows help viewer sucks.
>>I more or less agree, but I disagree with some of your specifics.
>>>Some simple examples:
>>>- You can't do a full-text search
>>HLP files are compressed, so a full-text search would be *very* slow.
>>And fancy searching tools (which, come to think of it, are the main
> 
>I don't want to search *existing* help files.  In fact, I could care less
>about exsiting help files.  I want to create a help file for OUR product
>and distribute a viewer for it WITH our product.

The point is still true though that a full text search would be very slow.
My opinion is that you'd be better offer spending the time to develop a good 
set of keywords and cross references.

>>>- The placement of bitmaps is very rudimentary
>>I'm no sure what you mean.  In any case, you might want to check out
>>the new bitmap tools for the 3.1 help compiler.
> 
>I can place a bitmap on the left, on the right, or in the center.  I think
>that there is a sort of way to get text to flow around a bitmap, but I can't
>get it to work.

in WORD, placing the bitmap using {bml foo.bmp} will put the bitmap foo at the
left edge of the paragraph and wrap the text next to it. {bmr ...} does the 
same for the right edge. {bmc ...} treats the bitmap as a character, that is it
is paced in the center and will end up wherever the word wrap takes it. 
This works just fine. In 3.0 on the bmc could be a hot spot, in 3.1 all three
can be.

>>>- I can't dictate what fonts the viewer will use unless I assume the
>>>  default fonts that ship with windows
>>This is a problem with *all* Windows apps.  If you know how force a
>>program to use a font that isn't actually installed on the user's
>>system, I wish you'd share it with us!
> 
>I am not a windows programmer (I don't even play one on TV).  I am just 
>a technical writer with an attitude problem.
> 
>So, basically, I understand that you CAN'T do this.  DOesn't stop me from
>wanting to do it though.   :-)

Well, there is the FORCEFONT option in the .HPJ file to force HELP to use 
the particular font you specify. Don't know what happens if the end user
doesn't have it installed though. But I suppose you could ship that font with
your application just to make sure.

>Again, I don't care about backward compat.  I don't want to view 
>*existing* HLP files.  I want to compile my own and suppy them to our
>customers with a viewer.

And I still think you'd be alot better off working with WINHELP than developing
something completely different. So WINHELP is not ideal, its not totally
useless, and it is what a Windows user is used to.

I've been looking through TPW's on-line help and there is (to me) an amazing
amount of information in there about developing Help files. Infinitely more
than the chicken scratch supplied in the MS-SDK. There is also indication of
alot of capabillity that wasn't even hinted at elsewhere. 


Sm (neophyte windows programmer, 1 app under my belt)
Xref: sparky comp.os.ms-windows.programmer.tools:711 comp.os.ms-windows.programmer.misc:1338 comp.software-eng:3227 comp.os.ms-windows.misc:2079 comp.os.msdos.programmer:8547 comp.programming:2331