🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <_89m9t-.garyd@netcom.com> garyd@netcom.com (Gary Dietz) writes:
>A) Full-text search
>
>A number of people said that beacuse windows help files are
>compressed, that a full-text search would be slow.  But then how does

The multimedia Viewer product is an derivative of WinHelp.  In fact, I 
browse Viewer files all the time with the standard WinHelp engine just
by having the extension DLLs from Viewer in my system directory.

Amongst many other things, Viewer gives full-text search capabilities
on Viewer specific files.  (It can read WinHelp files too, but can't
do full-text searching on them because they don't have the additional
index files.)

Viewer and it's development tools are in the Multimedia Development Kit
and I believe the engine itself is completely redistributable.

>Yes, a good index is ALWAYS a good thing.  They are just very hard to do
>well.  Ideally, I would like an index AND full-text search.

I agree.

>But, there is no real way to force very specific text flows and
>bitmap placements.  Plus, there is no way to turn off the
>automatic re-flow of text when you re-size a help window.

I'm not sure what you see as missing with bitmap placement/text wrapping.
If you can give me a specific example I'll see if I can find a solution.

The \keep RTF token makes the following paragraphs non-wrapping.  You 
will get a horizontal scroll bar if the text is too wide for the window.

>Plus, I am assuming that someobody will start to sell some stuff that
>will take advantage of WINHELP 3.1's ability to call macros.

Viewer is largely just that. Additionally I have seen some pretty slick
general purpose infomation tools done using this technique.

>E) Is there truth to the rumor that Microsoft disbanded their Help
>group?

No.

>F)  What is TPW?

Turbo Pascal for Windows I presume.

>A new help viewer would very likely require a new help compiler, as MS
>fails to document the .HLP file format.  Thus, they will change it the
>minute someone comes out with a better viewer.

This is just FUD.

-Blake
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