Open Source Help Viewer ( was Re: I'm sticking with WinHelp (was Re: WinHelp on Vista - a

[Sean Wheller <sean -at- inwords -dot- co -dot- za>]

On Sunday 24 September 2006 14:41, Char James-Tanny wrote:
> But what I don't understand is, how will a new Help system or viewer
> solve the dilemma of legacy WinHelp files?

Thanks for your response. It was very interesting indeed.

It's a bit of vision engineering.  

I think that if we had a free, open source, cross-platform, help viewing 
environment then it could be developed to display more that one single help 
format. This way we could provide support for display of legacy help files. 
Supporting the past, while developing the future. 

A free and open source environment such as this would be installable on all 
operating systems under the terms of GNU-GPL. Application vendors would 
therefore be free to package, copy, modify and install the environment.

Under this vision it would be possible to run multiple help formats regardless 
of platform. Yes, that means we should be able to run WinHelp or any other 
Help format on operating systems other than Windows or run WinHelp files on 
Vista without having to download and install the WinHelp engine. Development 
of such a viewer should not favor one help format, past, present, or future, 
over another.

Already users on Linux can install a viewer for display of chm files and we 
all know that readers for PDF are not in short supply. The GNOME Yelp Project 
and KDE HelpCenter projects do a good job of viewing numerous formats. 
Unfortunately, WinHelp is not one of them. 

What I am saying is that the leap to develop an all-one-display environment 
for help may not be as big as we think. Many open source components already 
exist. We just need to use these projects as upstreams.

As for security issues. Well, they will always exist and vendors will always 
be pushed to rethink ideas. However, at present they must secure across so 
many formats that it is just crazy. Perhaps a single viewer will help to 
narrow the opportunities for security issues to a single point as apposed to 
many.

The level of indirection such a viewer would provide, could be extremely 
valuable and offer application vendors and technical publications departments 
equal opportunities to enhance the Help Viewer of the future. I already know 
of a number of multi-nationals that have opted to use their own custom help 
environment, simply because existing help systems could not match 
requirements.
-- 
Ask me about the Monkey.

Sean Wheller
Technical Author
sean -at- inwords -dot- co -dot- za
+27-84-854-9408
http://www.inwords.co.za
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