[ros-dev] Implementing a help system

Casper Hornstrup ch at csh-consult.dk
Mon Feb 21 21:26:10 CET 2005


 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ros-dev-bounces at reactos.com
> [mailto:ros-dev-bounces at reactos.com] On Behalf Of Karim Liman-Tinguiri
> Sent: 21. februar 2005 16:09
> To: ros-dev at reactos.com
> Subject: [ros-dev] Implementing a help system
> 
> Hello,
> 
> Therefore I am wondering if there is a current project started to code 
> one. If not, I plan to code an open-source version of the winhlp32.exe 
> file located in the system folder able to open and show windows .hlp 
> files. The goal is to have a winhlp32.exe that runs and behaves 
> exactly like (or very close to) that of the Microsoft copyrighted 
> winhlp32.exe. It should therefore be able to serve existing windows 
> apps with a help server without any modification to the program. I've 
> verified the dependencies of winhlp32.exe; all of them have already 
> been implemented in ReactOS, so it should not be a big deal to code it 
> from scratch. Despite the fact that the .hlp file format isn't 
> officially documented, it has already been reverse engineered and its 
> documentation can be found on the web (2). However, if there already 
> is a help support project up and running, I intend to join it.

Winhelp is obviously needed for compatibility, but a MS Help clone would
be better to use for ReactOS online documentation due to its flexibility.
There is a GPL CHM library at: http://freshmeat.net/projects/chmlib/.

> Besides, as soon as this is ready (why not before ?), I advise we 
> convert all documentation on the reactos.com's library (and all 
> further documentation) to the DocBook (SGML)
> format: it has the advantage of being easily converted on-the-fly to 
> pdf, html, post-script and many others. A tool chain to convert it to 
> .hlp will however have to be created (meanwhile we can use the 
> standard tools for compiling .hlp files).

See http://svn.reactos.com/viewcvs/trunk/rosdocs/

Casper



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