Invisible schrieb:

> Of course, PDF has the advantage of being a single, compressed file with 
> no possibility of broken hyperlinks / missing images / missing fonts / 
> etc. But for a help file, I'd suggest that HTML is more appropriate. 
> (Who the hell is going to print out 2,000 pages on actual paper?)

Especially with a help file, I might want to do a full text search now 
and then.

Screw your 2000+ HTML files.

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> Especially with a help file, I might want to do a full text search now and 
> then.
>
> Screw your 2000+ HTML files.

Isn't that what the MS help file format is for?  It is basically HTML AIUI, 
but it has those "Index" "Search" and "Contents" panels for 
search/navigation.  If you are using Visual Studio I think there was even 
included a tool to build them automatically alongside your code (I never 
used it though).

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Darren New wrote:
> Invisible wrote:
>> (I've yet to find any browser anywhere that can print HTML properly), 
> 
> What you mean is that you've yet to find any HTML properly marked up for 
> printing.

Printing? How many HTML files have you seen that are properly marked up 
for normal display?! Usually they're just hacked together until IE 
displays them properly.

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On Thu, 05 Nov 2009 09:41:25 +0000, Invisible wrote:

> Of course, PDF has the advantage of being a single, compressed file with
> no possibility of broken hyperlinks / missing images / missing fonts /
> etc. But for a help file, I'd suggest that HTML is more appropriate.
> (Who the hell is going to print out 2,000 pages on actual paper?)

Broken hyperlinks is a definite possibility, both internal to the doc and 
to external websites.

I've worked with Framemaker enough to know that it's possible to build a 
PDF with borken internal document references, though you will get 
warnings on that.  It doesn't validate external links are valid or not.

Jim

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On 11/4/2009 4:53 PM, stbenge wrote:
> Personally, I think HTML help files are great, as long as everything is
> linked correctly. It's either one extra directory to the index, or one
> extra visible folder to look at. A good trade-off, IMO.

I prefer HTML to PDF too.

Mike

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TC wrote:
> A few years ago I used the official HTML-Help compiler from Microsoft to 
> produce help-files.


I know I still have that thing on my computer.

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Invisible wrote:
> ...you want a program that works on Windows 98?
> 
> Uh, good luck with that then.

Ya! I know I should up grade. But I'm cheap :)

> 
> So are you talking about *.hlp or *.chm files? They're different file 
> formats.

Any thing would do. I had a nice *.hlp editor once.

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Invisible wrote:
> (Who the hell is going to print out 2,000 pages on actual paper?)

When I first discovered POV-Ray, I printed out the entire help file. I 
don't think it was 2000 pages, but it was a big stack nevertheless :S

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Leroy Whetstone wrote:
> clipka wrote:
> 
>> I personally am more in for (well-indexed) PDF files.
> 
> What the BEEP.  I hate PDF files with a passion.
> You know what PDF means Pretty Damned F###ed.

My biggest problem with PDFs is that people always seem to bloat the 
stupid things. They end up taking forever to download. Also, the pages 
skip in an annoying way while paging through them.

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clipka wrote:
> Why is that?

Let's see a long long time ago I was in the middle of a then complex 
program and I needed some critical information fast. So I found a PDF
with what I wanted on the net. It took for ever to download. I don't 
remember what program I used to read it. But I do remember two things 
the size of that PDF was out of proportion to the information on it and 
it wasn't what I wanted. I hate it. I could have got to 10 web sites
in the time it took me to read that one PDF.
  Later when I have some time on my hand I did a little research into
PDF. It was mainly created for secuity. They didn't what someone 
changing a file with premission and passing it off as their own work.
It maght be alright for office work, But Who Cares.


> 
> They give a nice, clean, consistent layout on every output device 
> (including printers). HTML files, on the other hand, always have this 
> subtle "half-finished" feel to them, no matter how much effort you put 
> into their design.
> 

I rearly print anything. If I find something interesting on the net I 
download it or bookmark it.

> And you can easily do a full-text search on a PDF, which is always a 
> semi-hassle with HTML help files (as they typically don't come in a 
> single file).

That's why I liked a will written *.hlp file's index.

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