Win32 documentation in CHM?
Robin Becker
for Python-2.3.1 in .chm form. I particularly detest .chm and much
prefer .html as it works across all platforms. Additionally by having a
single index.html for all of the various bits of Python help I can link
in things like Pmw, PIL and Quick Guide etc with a simple text editor.
The argument is made that .chm is a better mechanism (more searchable
indexable etc) for help/documentation than html. Is that really so? HTML
is at least an open standard.
--
Robin Becker
Michael Peuser
"Robin Becker" <ro...@jessikat.fsnet.co.uk> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:CDURXJA3QHU$Ew...@jessikat.fsnet.co.uk...
chm is more compact and nicely packaged. It in fact is basically nothing but
html and you can unpack it if you want. There are lots of tools - look for
arCHMage e.g. which is a Unix chm viewer and decompiler...
Kindly
Michael P
James Kew
news:CDURXJA3QHU$Ew...@jessikat.fsnet.co.uk...
> The argument is made that .chm is a better mechanism (more searchable
> indexable etc) for help/documentation than html. Is that really so?
I've certainly found it so in the ActiveState distribution, which packages
the Python docs, plus selected third-party docs -- win32all, Dive Into
Python -- into a unified HTML Help package. Very, very handy to be able to
quickly look things up in a common index, or search across the whole lot.
(Still waiting for a 2.3 ActiveState distro, though...)
James
Robin Becker
<jame...@btinternet.com> writes
and then recompile with such beasts?
I like being able to down load someone's pdf slides on meta classes
into python/doc/xtras and then add a link to them to the main help
index. I am also fairly religious about not using IE.
--
Robin Becker
Bernard Delmée
> and then recompile with such beasts?
On Windows, just use the MS HTML Help Workshop:
Bernard Delmée
> the Python docs, plus selected third-party docs -- win32all, Dive Into
> Python -- into a unified HTML Help package. Very, very handy to be able to
> quickly look things up in a common index, or search across the whole lot.
>
> (Still waiting for a 2.3 ActiveState distro, though...)
The pythlp.py script, available at:
http://www.orgmf.com.ar/condor/pytstuff.html
still seems to work fine for python 2.3
It'll create an HTM Help project for you, incorporating all std docs,
which you then need to compile to CHM using the HTML Help Workshop:
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=14188
Cheers,
Bernard.
Tim Peters
> It seems the Gods are proposing to distribute the documentation and
> help for Python-2.3.1 in .chm form.
The volunteers who have, and will, build the PythonLabs Windows installers
(Mark Hammond, me, and now Thomas Heller) unanimously agreed that including
a .chm file in the 2.3.1 PythonLabs Windows installer would be more useful
to more people than continuing to ship 8.4MB of HTML docs spread over 1,200+
files.
Many forms of the Python docs (including plain HTML) will continue to be
available for downloading by whoever wants other formats.
> I particularly detest .chm and much prefer .html as it works across all
> platforms.
A .chm file will be included only in the Windows installer; a large pile of
HTML files will still be available, but won't be included in the Windows
installer.
> Additionally by having a single index.html for all of the various bits of
> Python help I can link in things like Pmw, PIL and Quick uide etc with a
> simple text editor.
>
> The argument is made that .chm is a better mechanism (more searchable
> indexable etc) for help/documentation than html. Is that really so?
> HTML is at least an open standard.
You cannot have used a properly constructed .chm file and seriously question
whether it's more searchable. Of course it is, including seemingly
instantaneous Boolean, proximity, wildcard, and similarity searches, across
the entire doc set with one query. I don't know of any way to search thru
more than a thousand .html files that's even arguably comparable; e.g., grep
is a slow & painful joke in comparison.
Lawrence Oluyede
> You cannot have used a properly constructed .chm file and seriously question
> whether it's more searchable. Of course it is, including seemingly
> instantaneous Boolean, proximity, wildcard, and similarity searches, across
> the entire doc set with one query. I don't know of any way to search thru
> more than a thousand .html files that's even arguably comparable; e.g., grep
> is a slow & painful joke in comparison.
Yeah, you're right, I recently switched from Win to Linux (cause I have to use
Linux for job stuff) and the only thing that I really miss is something like
chm compiled documentation. Now i have to use odd things like xCHM or the
nicely-formatted arCHMage :((
Mmm if I don't find something more useful i try to code a serious reader
by my self :)
--
Lawrence "Rhymes" Oluyede
http://loluyede.blogspot.com
rhy...@NOSPAMmyself.com
logistix at cathoderaymission.net
I don't think there is any intention to discontinue generation of
HTML, PDF, and other formats of the documentation. You can currently
get it here:
http://www.python.org/ftp/python/doc/2.3/
and presumably http://www.python.org/ftp/python/doc/2.3.1/ once it's
released.
They are just changing the Windows default install to provide standard
Windows help files.
Windows is currently the only platform where documentation is
installed by default. A standard 'make && make install' on ohter
doesn't do anything with the documentation. Everyone else has to
download it anyways, or use the magical incantations necessary to
generate it from the LaTeX source.
Iwan van der Kleyn
> The volunteers who have, and will, build the PythonLabs Windows installers
> (Mark Hammond, me, and now Thomas Heller) unanimously agreed that including
> a .chm file in the 2.3.1 PythonLabs Windows installer would be more useful
> to more people than continuing to ship 8.4MB of HTML docs spread over 1,200+
> files.
Great initiative. Are there any compiled CHM files available for 2.3,
perhaps from other sources then PythonLabs?
Regards,
Iwan
Anton Vredegoor
>You cannot have used a properly constructed .chm file and seriously question
>whether it's more searchable. Of course it is, including seemingly
>instantaneous Boolean, proximity, wildcard, and similarity searches, across
>the entire doc set with one query. I don't know of any way to search thru
>more than a thousand .html files that's even arguably comparable; e.g., grep
>is a slow & painful joke in comparison.
OTOH this seems like a job for a Python script. It should be possible
to do a search that locates all positions for all words in all files
(maybe the files can be in a zipped archive) and store the result in a
pickle. Probably what's needed is a dictionary and a list of file
paths:
the file path list( f.e. generated by a recursive path walk):
[file1,file2, ....]
the dictionary:
{"python" : [(1,3),(1,18),(26,5)], "dictionary": [(3,5),...]}
Where the first tuple (1,3) means the word "python" appears in the
file that's in the file path list at index 1, at position 3 in the
file.
Next time open the pickle and do not repeat the whole search.
Two problems:
- what should the -tkinter?- user interface look like?
- how to do an ascii-like search in a set of html-files (necessary for
displaying the found lines in a tkinter widget) and still return a
link for webbrowser.open("filename") with an offset to the found word
position after the item is clicked, selected or whatever.
One brainstorming idea:
- maybe a split window with a tree-like structure in the left (the
tree is pruned for the search term) and in the right a list of
clickable lines from the selected files in the tree.
Anton
Robin Becker
<tim...@comcast.net> writes
.....
>You cannot have used a properly constructed .chm file and seriously question
>whether it's more searchable. Of course it is, including seemingly
>instantaneous Boolean, proximity, wildcard, and similarity searches, across
>the entire doc set with one query. I don't know of any way to search thru
>more than a thousand .html files that's even arguably comparable; e.g., grep
>is a slow & painful joke in comparison.
>
>
Perhaps I just hate IE.
--
Robin Becker
Michael Geary
> Great initiative. Are there any compiled CHM files available for 2.3,
> perhaps from other sources then PythonLabs?
It's easy to make one using the tools and instructions that Bernard
mentioned:
http://www.orgmf.com.ar/condor/pytstuff.html
and:
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=14188
Just to help out until something more official shows up, I built a CHM file
for Python 2.3 which you can get here:
-Mike
Tim Peters
> Great initiative. Are there any compiled CHM files available for 2.3,
> perhaps from other sources then PythonLabs?
You can visit my elaborate home page <wink>:
JanC
> Yeah, you're right, I recently switched from Win to Linux (cause I
> have to use Linux for job stuff) and the only thing that I really miss
> is something like chm compiled documentation.
The wxWindows/wxPython helpviewer utility uses a subset of the MS HTML
Workshop format:
<http://wxwindows.org/manuals/2.4.1/wx21.htm#utilities>
<http://wxwindows.org/manuals/2.4.1/wx499.htm#helpformat>
For wxPython-version look in: site-packages/wxPython/tools
--
JanC
"Be strict when sending and tolerant when receiving."
RFC 1958 - Architectural Principles of the Internet - section 3.9
David Rushby
> Great initiative. Are there any compiled CHM files available for 2.3,
> perhaps from other sources then PythonLabs?
http://kinterbasdb.sourceforge.net/other/pystd_docs/py23docs.chm
Jussi Jumppanen
> Great initiative. Are there any compiled CHM files available
> for 2.3, perhaps from other sources then PythonLabs?
Slightly off topic but still related to Windows help files :)
You can also turn HTML files into the older Win32 WinHelp using
this nice little tool:
http://www.confluent.fr/javadoc/htmltohlpe.html
Jussi Jumppanen
Author of: Zeus for Windows (All new version 3.90 out now)
"The C/C++, Cobol, Java, HTML, Python, PHP, Perl programmer's editor"
Home Page: http://www.zeusedit.com
Jussi Jumppanen
>
> In article Tim Peters writes
> .....
> > You cannot have used a properly constructed .chm file and seriously
> > question whether it's more searchable. Of course it is, including
> > seemingly instantaneous Boolean, proximity, wildcard, and similarity
> > searches, across the entire doc set with one query.
>
> Perhaps I just hate IE.
The CHM search-abilty is definitely a plus, but I am also have my
resivations. In fact I think the WinHelp file format was a much
better help system. The WinHelp view was much faster loading, less
likely to crash and also just as easily searched. The original
HtmlHelp viewer was a real step backwards in comparison.
Grnated, the newer versions of the HTML viewer are more stable, but
they are still very demanding in terms of system memory. Try using
the Microsoft MSDN and watch your system grind to a halt :(
Even today the Zeus Quick Help keywords searching is still a lot
faster if the source of the keyword is a WinHelp file compared to
a HtmlHelp file.
Stephen Ferg
Got it! Thanks mucho!
Michael Geary
> Just to help out until something more official shows up, I built a CHM
file
> for Python 2.3 which you can get here:
>
> http://www.geary.com/Python/
I just noticed that the CHM file that Tim Peters built is better than the
one I posted above. (The title shows the correct version number, it has a
font size button, and it includes "What's New" in the contents.)
If you downloaded my copy, I recommend that you replace it with Tim's, which
you can find here:
http://home.comcast.net/~tim.one/
I also replaced the old version on my site with a copy of Tim's file, so
anyone who happens to use the link I posted previously will get the good
version.
If you are using Mozilla Firebird and download the file from Tim's site,
you'll want to right-click on the Python23.chm link and do a Save Link As
instead of just clicking on the link--which loads the binary .CHM file into
the browser window!
(Tim, I fixed that glitch on my site by putting an "AddType
application/octet-stream chm" line in my .htaccess file--so a regular
left-click in Mozilla Firebird does the right thing. If Comcast lets you use
a .htaccess file you could add that too.)
-Mike