CHM help format
Is there any plan to support the Microsoft "Compiled HTML Help" format?
For me, it is always the most convenient way to access the docs.
I've made a CHM file that I use personally.
http://www.cookiemonsters.org/MS_Help.zip. Perhaps it would be of use
to other developers. It lacks an index, and the table of contents is
incomplete (you have to browse to the deep pages instead of using the
table of contents to go there directly), but it has full-text search and
has been useful for me.
Postgresql-7.3.chm - This is the redistributed file containing all of
the HTML files + the full-text search index.
Table of Contents.hhc - This is the Table of Contents file. It is a
text file that could potentially be generated from the sgml docs with a
Perl script. It is currently incomplete - it only has the top two or
three levels.
PostgreSQL.hhp - This is a Microsoft HTML Help Workshop project file,
containing settings for regenerating the CHM file. It is also a text
file, and could also be generated by a Perl script after documentation
updates.
Words.stp - This is a stop list of words that should not be indexed by
the full-text search index.
To regenerate the CHM file (after updates to the documentation files,
for example): The hhp and hhc files expect the HTML to have been
extracted to a subdirectory called "HTML" and that the FAQs are in
src/FAQ.
Doug Cook writes:
Is there any plan to support the Microsoft "Compiled HTML Help" format?
No, but if you would like to tell us how to generate and test it, we could
be interested. AFAIK, the standard DocBook style sheets support HTML Help
output, so much of the work might already be done.
--
Peter Eisentraut peter_e@gmx.net
XSL style sheets exist. I don't see anything in the DSSSL distro for equivalent DSSSL style sheets. I'm definitely not a docbook or DSSSL expert (although I did learn scheme in college).
If you are using XML docbook, it is as simple as running the transform program and then running HHC (HTML Help Compiler) on the generated project file. The XSL generates the HHP (HTML Help Project) and HHC (HTML Help Contents) files, and the help compiler combines the HHC, HTML, and any other files (such as images) into the CHM.
For somebody who was familiar with the SGML stuff, I think it wouldn't take a lot of time. The first problem is emitting the HHC (table of contents) file. It is a pretty simple file, and pretty much in HTML. The HHP file could probably be generated using cat and ls commands. That would be enough to make a decent HTML help file.
Beyond that, there would be room for tweaking. A small change in the emitted HTML for index entries would add an index to the HTML help file, and this would probably eliminate the need for a separate index page. A few other changes might also be made, but they would just be minor style changes.
I have attached the TOC and HHP files (along with the full-text index stop word list) that I used to create an initial CHM for the Postgres docs. They are all text files, and there isn't much mystery to them.
________________________________
From: Peter Eisentraut [mailto:peter_e@gmx.net]
Sent: Tue 2/18/2003 3:02 PM
To: Doug Cook
Cc: pgsql-docs@postgresql.org
Subject: Re: [DOCS] CHM help format
Doug Cook writes:
Is there any plan to support the Microsoft "Compiled HTML Help" format?
No, but if you would like to tell us how to generate and test it, we could
be interested. AFAIK, the standard DocBook style sheets support HTML Help
output, so much of the work might already be done.
--
Peter Eisentraut peter_e@gmx.net
Import Notes
Resolved by subject fallback