ANNOUNCE: List digest as online help

[Sven-Ola Tücke <sven-ola -at- BERLIN -dot- CONTRIB -dot- NET>]

                        Hello listers,

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Finally, the "mailing list to html help" converter is up and
running. After programming and bugfixing a while, I'am now
able to offer you a new and free service: Get your list
mailings as a compiled html online help.

The facts in short

   * Compiled html help, created on a regulary basis from
     list mailings.
   * Comes with threaded toc, index of authors and full text
     search.
   * Mails are divided in two foldable parts for better
     readability: body and footers.
   * Includes printable versions with mail bodys only.
   * New digests will merge with digests you received
     already.
   * Deals with mime compilant text/plain, text/enriched and
     text/html mailings.
   * Includes any file attachments and representations of
     netscape vcards.
   * Netscape compatible website with all digests, realized
     with the html help java applet.
   * Missing mailings are supplied on demand from the digest
     website.
   * Special mailing list; if you subscribe, you receive
     actual digests.

You can view or download the digests from our companys
website at http://www.commando.de/digests/ or send mail to
majordomo -at- commando -dot- de including one line in the body (only
one, no signature and without the quotes):

   "subscribe techwr-l".

If you want to post to the list, you have to stay
subscribed (depends on the list policy).

What you need

To use the chm digests you need Internet explorer 3.x or
higher with the actual html help ActiveX control 1.2
installed. The control is downloadable from the microsoft
site. The folded view of the mailings and the "not available"
redirection page only work with IE 4.0+.
To view the web representation, you can also use netscape 3.0
or higher. The folded view only works with netscape 4.0+.
Additionally, you need to have java, javascript and client
side cookies enabled for full functionality.

Known bugs

   * I didn't find a good way to decode ms-tnef (Transport
     Neutral Encapsulation Format) generated by Outlook users
     sending rtf mail. One of the proprietary non-standards
     hopefully vanishing in the future...
   * The <a href=mailto:> links didn't preset the subject
     field for a new mail. So you have to enter the subject
     for an answer manually. Maybe, I can solve this with an
     ActiveX-Plugin, but this task is rather time
     consuming...

Behind the stage

I'am a programmer and administrator working for a german
company. We do documentation, web design and server
installations for our customers, mainly telco and computer
related subjects. For an actual project (a somewhat cryptical
to html help converter), I need internal information about
html help. So I found the winhlp-l (and other) mailing lists
as a valuable source of information.
In november '98, I receive more than 50 postings per day.
Because our internet connection is dialup -it dials out for
each mail-, I installed a mail2news gateway on our main linux
server and redirect the list mail to a special pop account
for regulary queries.
I spend time searching through the news server database very
often, so I developed the idea of a digest as a searchable
html help file. A pre-version, developed as a short perl
script, generated the first chm digests, which I offered to
the list members. Because of the feedback, I'am able to
convince my management to spend time for such a service. "If
it's good for marketing, you have one week. But the rest is
your private matter" she says...

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If you have problems or want to make suggestions, feel free
to contact me by mail.

--

Sven-Ola Tuecke           Commando GmbH       Alte Jakobstr. 149
sven-ola -at- commando -dot- de      10969 Berlin          Germany, Sol III
http://www.commando.de                    Tel:  +49 30 62709-129
AG Berlin-Charlottenburg HRB 65152        Fax:  +49 30 62709-150