Help file changes

[GEOSoft]

Whenever I download a new version of the Beta I decompile the help file for a few reasons.

Each time I have to build new Table of Contents files (I have one script that only requires part of the Help file for context help)

I have modified the original .hhc file to get rid of the extra GUI Reference entry (moved items to Function Reference\GUI Reference) and moved the Ini items from the Function Reference\File, Directory..... folder to a new folder (Function Reference\INI Functions)

I'm not sure who is looking after the help files but if you want to take a look at the hhc file for version 3.1.1.123 save it from http://dundats.mvps.org/autoit/AutoIt3%20TOC.hhc

I also had quite a few of the HTML pages that I had spell checked and corrected but I lost track of that project so I'll redo them if you are interested.

[ptrex]

Whenever I download a new version of the Beta I decompile the help file for a few reasons.

Each time I have to build new Table of Contents files (I have one script that only requires part of the Help file for context help)

I have modified the original .hhc file to get rid of the extra GUI Reference entry (moved items to Function Reference\GUI Reference) and moved the Ini items from the Function Reference\File, Directory..... folder to a new folder (Function Reference\INI Functions)

I'm not sure who is looking after the help files but if you want to take a look at the hhc file for version 3.1.1.123 save it from http://dundats.mvps.org/autoit/AutoIt3%20TOC.hhc

I also had quite a few of the HTML pages that I had spell checked and corrected but I lost track of that project so I'll redo them if you are interested.

@GEOSoft

I definitely support this !!

Because the structure of the HELP file has been a grieve of day 1 since I joined the forum.

I 've been posting this in serveral subforum, but no success yet.

Your proposal is most logic and I would not know or understand why an improvement would be rejected by the developers.

So I would say, GO FOR IT !!

[GEOSoft]

I'm only suggesting it because I have found that if I was in a hurry when I wanted to look up something in the GUI reference that I would invariably click on the wrong GUI Reference entry and then have to open Functions and get the correct one. As for the INI section, now that there are more commands available for INI files then it made sense to me to move that to it's own section for faster lookup.

Help files should always be user friendly. Unfortunatly documentation is the one thing that most developers hate doing and I'm as guilty of that as anyone else. It takes longer to write the docs than it does to write the app. If you've been around awhile then you will probably remember all of the pestering Jon took to update the help file. He had very little in the way of assistance at that time and IIRC it was Cyberslug who first made a valiant effort at fixing it all, complete with pages of examples.

Edited May 24, 2006 by GEOSoft

[ptrex]

I would invariably click on the wrong GUI Reference entry and then have to open Functions and get the correct one.

I thought I was the only one always opening the wrong sections n the help file

I am glad to see that there are more !?

BTW :

I have donwloaded the Help file documentation, because I am helping to create a Help file for a standard UDF for SQLite.

And I agree it's not so easy to create a consistent documentation.

What I am saying is that whatever has been created so far, was damn good !!

The only thing missing was a logic structure in the index and sections.

And that's what you now are taking care of. I hope everyone appreciates that as much as I do.

I have seen that someone created a Help file for the IE.au3 as well. Would it be over the top to merge it together with the standard Help ?

Or if not merged, at least distribute it together.

[GEOSoft]

I thought I was the only one always opening the wrong sections n the help file

I am glad to see that there are more !?

BTW :

I have donwloaded the Help file documentation, because I am helping to create a Help file for a standard UDF for SQLite.

And I agree it's not so easy to create a consistent documentation.

What I am saying is that whatever has been created so far, was damn good !!

The only thing missing was a logic structure in the index and sections.

And that's what you now are taking care of. I hope everyone appreciates that as much as I do.

I have seen that someone created a Help file for the IE.au3 as well. Would it be over the top to merge it together with the standard Help ?

Or if not merged, at least distribute it together.

It would probably be best if it was to be merged with UDFs3.chm. The same thing applies to your help file IMHO. And that's not difficult to accomplish. Actually I would like to see the UDF's and their Help file created as a separate download.

The same thing should happen with the "Extras" folder but that's just MHO and it's all up to the powers that be.

For creating Setup packages I use Inno Setup and when I go to the download page I can Download Inno Setup and then go to the Add-ons page and get any extras that I want plus there is a list of Third party apps designed for use with Inno so I use those links to download any of that software that I want. I think that is a much better idea and it keeps the total size of the DL's down because I am only getting what I want. AutoIt used to run under a Meg for the download now it's over 2 Meg. I agree that a lot of that is because of added functionallity in AI that was very desirable to have and that doesn't bother me but I spend quite a bit of time after a download taking the zip apart and only taking what I want out of it.