[LogoForum] RFC: Is it too early to change FMSLogo's documentation from .HLP to .CHM?

The message below is being cross-posted from LogoForum.

I am strongly considering changing FMSLogo's documentation from .HLP
to .CHM.  Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

For those of you who don't already know, .HLP files (also called
WinHelp) are supported on all versions of Windows.  These are the help
files that look like little purple books.  These are also the help
files that ask the user how large a database they'd like when they
search for a string.  This is what FMSLogo currently uses.

CHM files (also called HTML Help) are the newer form of Windows
documentation.  CHM files have replaced .HLP files.  CHM is NOT
supported out-of-box on Win95, but Microsoft has a free download for
enabling the support.  CHM files are nice because they show you where
you are in the manual and let you easily navigate up, down, forward,
or backward.

CHM files may also be a little slower than HLP files.  On my 90 MHz
Pentium machine running Win95, the CHM took about five seconds to
load, whereas the .HLP file loaded almost instantly.

Does anyone think there are any Win95/98 users who use FMSLogo and who
can't view .CHM files?

Why this is important:
WinHelp files are generated from RTF.  FMSLogo's RTF file is difficult
to manage--it is over 700 pages long and takes *minutes* to load in
OpenOffice.   Because RTF doesn't diff well, whenever I make a change,
it's hard to know exactly what change I made.  I am also afraid I will
accidently break the documentation whenever I fix it.

To address this problem, I recently ported the RTF to an XML-based
format called DocBook, which can be used to generate .CHM files, RTF,
HTML, PDF, and several other formats.  Unfortunately, I just found out
that the RTF produced by DocBook cannot be used to generate HLP
files (without a lot of additional development time on my part).  So,
to take advantage of DocBook, I'd have to use CHM.

Thanks for your input,

David Costanzo



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