Re: Converting Windows Help Files to OS/2

Subject: Re: Converting Windows Help Files to OS/2
From: Michael Priestley <mpriestley -at- VNET -dot- IBM -dot- COM>
Date: Mon, 8 Jan 1996 13:48:01 EST

>Alexander Von_obert <avobert -at- twh -dot- msn -dot- sub -dot- org> writes:

>BTW: Last year at CeBIT I searched the IBM OS/2 booth about someone who could
> tell me about a few good authoring tools for OS/2 help. The most constructive
> answer I got: "Good question..."

Bad answer. IPF Editor from Perez and HyperWise from IBM are the two I know
about off-hand. Though to be honest, I think it's easier to tag them by hand.
The tagging language is pretty intuitive, and well-documented. No harder
than HTML.

I've already sent Brett my summary of RTF-to-IPF conversion utilities.
Though someone else has already recommended the Smart toolset for conversions,
which was the pick of the bunch in the summary as well.

>You will find
>that OS/2 help (IPF) is quite limited compared to Winhelp, e.g. in the
>typographical fields.

This comes as a bit of a surprise. In addition to the search, IPF has:

- hierarchical TOC
- built-in indexing
- cross-book indexing (eg Master Index object on OS/2 desktop)
- selectable printing (entire doc, selected sections, or current panel)
- whole library searches (search all INF files on system)
- context-sensitive help is sesitive at control level (eg help for currently
selected entry field, button, or menu item)
- multiple INF and HLP files open at same time
- independently resizable windows
- in-text cross-linking (and not just with glossary terms)
- imagemap hypergraphic linking
- an extremely customizable, programmable interface (the Warp tutorial is
written in IPF, believe it or not).

I'm not very familiar with RTF, though. Has it added these features?

Still an OS/2 bigot,


Michael Priestley
mpriestley -at- vnet -dot- ibm -dot- com
Disclaimer: speaking on my own behalf, not IBM's.


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