XYplorer Beta Club

After trying about 2 dozen CHM Softwares (Generators, Creators, Converters, Extractors, Intruders, Wizards, Lizards, Blizzards... almost all rubbish), I finally found one that works far better than the rest (but still a long way from great): ABC Amber HLP Converter ( http://www.processtext.com/abchlp.html )!

Here's what it spits out when fed XYplorer.hlp: XYplorer.chm
EDIT: It can also produce a PDF in case you're interested: XYplorer.pdf

Note that I'm using the trial version of the software (you will see that immediately in the CHM file)! I will buy it unless I find a better one soon...

So that CHM appears to be all in one listing...no sections/topics/whatever.
That's not what you want, true?

The PDF output has some interesting possibilities...there may need to be some adaptations for it, but other software tends to have this as option, and may be more user friendly to some.

j_c_hallgren wrote:So that CHM appears to be all in one listing...no sections/topics/whatever.
That's not what you want, true?

The PDF output has some interesting possibilities...there may need to be some adaptations for it, but other software tends to have this as option, and may be more user friendly to some.

Yes, the topic parser is buggy...

I like the PDF version myself. The layout is pretty good, and when using the latest Acrobat Reader 7.1 you have a fine Search interface. Unfortunately internal links do not work...

admin wrote: I will buy it unless I find a better one soon...

I'm pretty sure you already tried Help & Manual. It's the best documentation tool I know (what else would you expect from an Austrian company? ). The problem is that it is probably oversized for your needs and very expensive.

bergfex wrote:

admin wrote: I will buy it unless I find a better one soon...

I'm pretty sure you already tried Help & Manual. It's the best documentation tool I know (what else would you expect from an Austrian company? ). The problem is that it is probably oversized for your needs and very expensive.

I'm looking for something automatic rather. HLP to CHM. Since all the necessary info is contained within the HLP file and it is possible to decompile HLP files it should be possible to do a good job here. $399.00 looks a bit steep for this, and I cannot even find a clear statement on their website, that they can do the job. Otherwise I would be tempted to do it...

The CHM version doesn't work at all for me.
The Contents tab shows a list of all the topics, but clicking on any of them displays "The page cannot be displayed" in the main content area.

EDIT: Nevermind. Apparently the IT department enabled zone information preserving. So Windows will prompt before opening the file, but the CHM viewer won't display the contents unless the file is unblocked.

It looks good. I've always been partial to CHM over PDF, but it would be nice to include multiple formats as separate downloads from the site.

admin wrote:I'm looking for something automatic rather. HLP to CHM. Since all the necessary info is contained within the HLP file and it is possible to decompile HLP files it should be possible to do a good job here. $399.00 looks a bit steep for this, and I cannot even find a clear statement on their website, that they can do the job. Otherwise I would be tempted to do it...

I imported the compiled HLP file and converted it to CHM and PDF (without doing anything else, no fine tuning).

I think the result is quite good (PW: donald), but for that price one really can expect a good result.

Your results will be much better (I had some undefined references) because you have the Winhelp source files.

Wouldn't it be so shameless expensive it would be really a great tool.

bergfex wrote:

admin wrote:I'm looking for something automatic rather. HLP to CHM. Since all the necessary info is contained within the HLP file and it is possible to decompile HLP files it should be possible to do a good job here. $399.00 looks a bit steep for this, and I cannot even find a clear statement on their website, that they can do the job. Otherwise I would be tempted to do it...

I imported the compiled HLP file and converted it to CHM and PDF (without doing anything else, no fine tuning).

I think the result is quite good (PW: donald), but for that price one really can expect a good result.

Your results will be much better (I had some undefined references) because you have the Winhelp source files.

Wouldn't it be so shameless expensive it would be really a great tool.

Hey, thanks for trying! Indeed the results are the best I've seen so far. There's a strange bug (?) though in the PDF: the chapter "Edit Menu" is in Latin! Maybe I can get it cheaper without the Latin module...

admin wrote:Hey, thanks for trying! Indeed the results are the best I've seen so far. There's a strange bug (?) though in the PDF: the chapter "Edit Menu" is in Latin! Maybe I can get it cheaper without the Latin module...

Yeah, in the CHM file the chapter "Disclaimer" consists of dummy text (lorem ipsum) too. Maybe not a bug, but related to using the compiled HLP file instead of the source files. I used an older version of Help & Manual to create the files, the new version 5 should be much better.

ADDENDUM:
The dummy text is no bug for sure, but a limitation which only exists in the trial version of "Help & Manual" and not in the full version.

bergfex wrote:ADDENDUM:
The dummy text is no bug for sure, but a limitation which only exists in the trial version of "Help & Manual" and not in the full version.

Ah, good.

Hi Don, if i did get you right, you're used to write your help file sources in MSWORD, then compiled to HLP. So you keep your docs (or is your source a single doc?). So why not convert the docs stucture to CHM directly.
Speaking of ABC Amber converters - i used to let their Text Merger (name somewhat misleading) do the CHM-conversion on my doc files. You can load your doc folders to the merger and it will take folder / subfolder names as nodes for the compiled CHM (or PDF, HTML, ...). Chance to get the most out of your docs.

Before i ended up with writing documentation in MyNotesKeeper(.com) - advanced outliner with internal EXE-e-book and CHM compiler - I too tried almost all of those tools out there: crutches! You always get parsing losses more or less doubled.

On this occasion I just tested PowerCHM ($59 dawningsoft.com - current 5.7) again after two years. Quite impressed - like Text Merger it can work on your doc folders structure. More flexible. Hope to look more thorough into it anytime after football (ouch, sorry: soccer)

Linkaday wrote:Hi Don, if i did get you right, you're used to write your help file sources in MSWORD, then compiled to HLP. So you keep your docs (or is your source a single doc?). So why not convert the docs stucture to CHM directly.
Speaking of ABC Amber converters - i used to let their Text Merger (name somewhat misleading) do the CHM-conversion on my doc files. You can load your doc folders to the merger and it will take folder / subfolder names as nodes for the compiled CHM (or PDF, HTML, ...). Chance to get the most out of your docs.

Before i ended up with writing documentation in MyNotesKeeper(.com) - advanced outliner with internal EXE-e-book and CHM compiler - I too tried almost all of those tools out there: crutches! You always get parsing losses more or less doubled.

On this occasion I just tested PowerCHM ($59 dawningsoft.com - current 5.7) again after two years. Quite impressed - like Text Merger it can work on your doc folders structure. More flexible. Hope to look more thorough into it anytime after football (ouch, sorry: soccer)

I use only one doc (resp. RTF) file for the whole HLP project, so the merger won't have to merge a lot.

The whole Help project has just 4 files:
XYplorer-Map.txt
XYplorer.rtf
XYplorer.cnt
XYplorer.hpj

Here they are, so now everybody can compile his own XYplorer Help: http://www.xyplorer.com/download/XYHelpSources.zip
Hey, Open Source Help!

PowerCHM: not yet tested, will do later...

bergfex wrote:

admin wrote:I'm looking for something automatic rather. HLP to CHM. Since all the necessary info is contained within the HLP file and it is possible to decompile HLP files it should be possible to do a good job here. $399.00 looks a bit steep for this, and I cannot even find a clear statement on their website, that they can do the job. Otherwise I would be tempted to do it...

I imported the compiled HLP file and converted it to CHM and PDF (without doing anything else, no fine tuning).

I think the result is quite good (PW: donald), but for that price one really can expect a good result.

Your results will be much better (I had some undefined references) because you have the Winhelp source files.

Wouldn't it be so shameless expensive it would be really a great tool.

I finally found the time to evaluate H&M. It's good but not perfect. I spare you the details for now but it's certainly not what i would expect for such an extraordinary price!

ADD: The sad truth is that H&M is not even able to parse my Help sources (let alone the HLP file) correctly (the free MS Help Compiler from 1997 has no problems with it!). I've spent hours with trying everything imaginable but it simply does not work. I'm really slightly depressed now, because I planned to publish XY 7.50 with a brandnew help (CHM, PDF, HTML) -- but it looks like my bad experience with Help software continues. I will probably have to write my own help software... arggh.

Question to all Vista users here: what help format is commonly used by applications under Vista? Is it Microsoft Help 2.0 (.HXS) or is HMTL Help (.CHM) more common?

admin wrote:The sad truth is that H&M is not even able to parse my Help sources (let alone the HLP file) correctly (the free MS Help Compiler from 1997 has no problems with it!). I've spent hours with trying everything imaginable but it simply does not work. I'm really slightly depressed now, because I planned to publish XY 7.50 with a brandnew help (CHM, PDF, HTML) -- but it looks like my bad experience with Help software continues. I will probably have to write my own help software... arggh.

Unfortunately it seems to be no trivial task to convert one format into another. Have you already tried some of the tips at this website?