RE: [ros-dev] Implementing a help system

[Casper Hornstrup]

>   -----Original Message-----
>  From: ros-dev-bounces(a)reactos.com
>  [mailto:[e-mail]] On Behalf Of Karim Liman-Tinguiri
>  Sent: 21. februar 2005 16:09
>  To: ros-dev(a)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