From: sarnold AT coyote DOT rain DOT org (Stephen L Arnold) Subject: Re: Help engine/file format (was CD-based distribution...) 20 Aug 1998 17:53:55 -0700 Message-ID: <199808200146.SAA04228.cygnus.gnu-win32@coyote.rain.org> References: <35D83FED DOT 50E5C27A AT sigma6 DOT com> Reply-To: sarnold AT earthling DOT net Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT To: gnu-win32 AT cygnus DOT com On 17 Aug 98, Jeff Sturm wrote: > HTML help files are a good idea provided the user has a decent browser > installed (probably nearly all desktops these days). Plenty of tools > exist to convert man and tekinfo files to HTML (I assume). > > One problem using static files for help is the lack of a search > facility. I've heard Microsoft has done something for Win98, but that > won't help us since the GNU-win32 distribution is targetting Win95/NT too. > Maybe someone can build a help engine based on Apache though... > > Marcus Brown wrote: > > > > An Idea, > > How about using HTML Help as opposed to .info/man files? This is an > > up'n'coming help system that seems to be gaining a lot of ground, just a > > suggestion... > > > > Jeff Sturm wrote: > > >The 'man' command should be included. What about HTML, or (ick) > > Windows > > >.hlp files? > > It would be nice if the man command came with the base distribution (or EGCS). Or better still, a win32 X-man type shell with a command list, search features,etc. Unless you have the latest PII, K6, etc, most current browsers are slow (piggish), and it seems like Apache would have to be trimmed down quite a bit. (I'm not much of a coder myself, yet, so I love throwing this stuff out) How about text files with an interface to select available help files and use grep to search with? It's faster than you might think, even on *lots* of files. It could even be configurable for multiple file formats (using a lynx base for the HTML part?). I've got a win32GUI plus the GNU grep source (GPL'd, of course). I can't do much myself yet, as I just had my first (beginning) C class last night. Would any real coders out there like to take a stab at it? If you're not up to it, just say so... ;-} Just my way of saying Hi to the list. Steve ************************************************************* Steve Arnold sarnold AT earthling DOT net http://www.rain.org/~sarnold Fatal error: MS Windows detected, deleting DOS partition... - For help on using this list (especially unsubscribing), send a message to "gnu-win32-request AT cygnus DOT com" with one line of text: "help".