HELP Maker ? freeware tool ?

[mLipok]

Hi.

I want just to ask:

What a freeware or GPL tool is good for creating HELP Files ?

I just start using HelpMaker 7.4.4

But maybe is better tool ?

What is your opinion ?

Thanks for any answer.

[Melba23]

mlipok,

I use Helpmaker and find it quite a useful tool. But it is not completely stable - save regularly!

M23

[guinness]

These are two others I know of >> http://www.portablefreeware.com/index.php?sc=175

[mLipok]

thanks for answer

btw.

 

Melba23

homepage http://www.vizacc.com/   from HelpMaker is blank 

Do you know any other website with any support (ie. forum) for HelpMaker ?

[guinness]

There is the sourceforge site as well >> http://sourceforge.net/projects/helpmaker/

[Melba23]

mlipok,

Alas no - I went searching when vizacc went off-line a couple of years ago and found nothing else. But the app is not that bad - I save regularly because it freezes now and again (what does not?), but for the most part I have had very little problem with it. Jos did complain about a fair amount of extraneous HTML code when I rewrote the SciTE4AutoIt3 helpfile last year - but that might just have been me!

M23.

[mLipok]

btw.

I want to create Polish translation for AutoIt Help

I think this be a good lesson (learning complete set of function)

I know it be a hard work... and may take a lot of time

But how to start with that ?

Do any body know other member from Poland (witch are Polish native speakers)

I want to PM to them - maybe they will be join to translation project

Edited May 31, 2013 by mlipok

[guinness]

You're the only one I know who is Polish. AZJIO has a fair idea of how difficult and long the task is.

[mLipok]

about  and AZJIO

I read many of his post/topics

I know he translate AutoIt Help to Russian Language

And I am under impression what many post he sending in

'?do=embed' frameborder='0' data-embedContent>>

for that I start to thinking about: start to translate AutoIt Help

[mLipok]

How I say "I think this be a good lesson (learning complete set of function)"

[mLipok]

btw

I use 

http://www.autoitscript.com/forum/index.php?app=members&module=list

and I found 29 members with Location=POLAND

I am curious if  it is some statistics showing amount member in grouping on localizations ?

[Myicq]

@mlipok: I have been battling a while with the same question, "how to make cleanest possible HTML into a CHM file". So far all editors I have tried, even commercial ones, have failed. All seem to produce insame amounts of noise and local styles in the code.

My solution was to use a webpage to edit, embedded into an AutoIT script. Inside the webpage I had IE (of course) and an editor based on Javascript, I think CKEditor was the choice for me. FCKEditor is also good.

The resulting code is stored in a database, SQLite.

For CHM compilation, which I did not do, you can directly call the command line tool from Microsoft. (google HTML Help workshop if MS moves the link..again..)

Essentially this is a do-it-yourself solution. But in my view it will give me best results.

If your help files need less different markup, you can easily implement even simpler solution: create a simple markup language in autoit, then process before you compile. This is called a pre-processor, and is exactly what the help for AutoIT is made from.

Example, using made-up markup:

.code[
here is the code

more code here
]

there are countless of these "markdown" languages to study from.

If you do this, you have full control of the resulting HTML code. And it's faster to write when you translate, compared to using a GUI. A bit like combining a Wiki with preprosessor with HTML editor.

Hope this rambling makes sense to you or anyone

 - torben

[mLipok]

it's really interesting

thanks for info

[Jos]

Same approach here as Torben: I use Composer as HTML editor and the "HTML Help workshop" from Microsoft to design and compile the helpfile.

Jos

[VixinG]

btw.

I want to create Polish translation for AutoIt Help

I think this be a good lesson (learning complete set of function)

I know it be a hard work... and may take a lot of time

But how to start with that ?

Do any body know other member from Poland (witch are Polish native speakers)

I want to PM to them - maybe they will be join to translation project

 

 

I don't find it useful to translate AutoIt to Polish. Too much work and what for? Sure, it's not an easy language, if you're planning to write something serious, but I don't think it's hard to understand it and know how everything works. Putting it altogether and making sure it works is hard, but individually everything is easy. It's really well-written and people are often too lazy to press F1 and that's why they sometimes ask on forums, before they get into manual. If someone really wants to write something using AutoIt, he will find a way to learn functions (which are self-explanatory, like: ControlGetPos, StringIsFloat, WinGetPos, etc.) AutoIt syntax is very intuitional. Hey, I know some stuff is really hard if you look at it for the first time, if you don't know anything yet, but... who starts from the end? If you know basics and can use it together in script, you will understand the hardest functions, by looking on examples or searching another help file, which is THIS forum.
There are examples and nice detailed help files everywhere. If you still want to do it, you can of course, but I find it useless. Let me know what do you think.

Regards,
VixinG 

Edited July 15, 2013 by VixinG

[mLipok]

If you still want to do it, you can of course, but I find it useless.

 

 maybe You have right

 

Let me know what do you think.

 

but

How I say "I think this be a good lesson (learning complete set of function)"

[VixinG]

@mlipok
In my opinion, the best way of learning something is by doing it. I'm not an expert, but I learned everything in my life by doing and failing.
When I have an idea, I start with basic code, and then I replace some part of the code with more advanced functions. I have help opened all the time and I read.
I add new UDF functions and improve code. Learning a complete set of functions is not as effective as using all of them in an application.
Let's say you want to write a Mail client - you can use ALL functions from Function Reference and you will learn more by writing that client, than learning all the functions by translating it's reference and remarks.

Believe me, even if you learn all these functions, you will still use F1, unless you're very experienced like Melba23 or others. 

Edited July 15, 2013 by VixinG

[Melba23]

VixinG,

 

even if you learn all these functions, you will still use F1, unless you're very experienced like Melba23 or others

Believe me, I use F1 all the time! For example, to check on the order of the parameters - or exactly which value to use - in a function I do not use that often.

M23

[guinness]

I learnt a great deal about AutoIt by helping with the help file. For example the other day I discovered this function >>

_Assert

I know! It's in Debug.au3, who would've known.

[VixinG]

Back to the question:
Wikipedia has got a lists and comparison lists of different software.
Here's the ss I took about the CHM file makers: