Kbase 17503: V8 Character mode Help - compiler and viewer availability
| Autor |
Progress Software Corporation - Progress |
| Acesso |
Público |
| Publicação |
10/05/1998 |
|
V8 Character mode Help - compiler and viewer availability
Help in V8 Character mode no longer supported.
The UNIX Character mode Help Compiler was written by a
third party software company, Bristol. The version of
the Help Compiler that Progress was using in V7 was very old,
requiring the .rtf files to be saved in Word 2.0.
Bristol does not have a newer version of the Help Compiler
for Character mode, only for GUI. Since Bristol dropped support
for the compiler and viewer years ago, Progress is unable to
support it. It is bundled "as-is" in V7, but we do not have
the ability to port it to V8.
For migration, development has kept the ability to call the old
viewer via the standard 4GL SYSTEM-HELP command. If customers
bring forward the help viewer, compiler and the help (.hlp) files
to v8 by themselves, the SYSTEM-HELP command will still call the
viewer. The compiler is 'prohc' and the viewer is 'ttyhelp'.
For new development, customers will have to develop 4GL based help or
follow the new standard described below.
Progress (and Microsoft) now view HTML based help as the future for
cross-platform application help solutions. The popularity of the Web
has spawned a great variety of tools for creating and maintaining
HTML. Viewers (Web browsers) for just about any platform are
available. A character mode viewer for HTML called Lynx is available
on the Net in source code for both UNIX and DOS:
http://www.speakeasy.org/lynx_help/Lynx_users_guide.html
http://www.cc.ukans.edu/lynx_help/Lynx_users_guide.html
Microsoft is now creating a HTML Help product that will include the
capability for translating RTF based help files to HTML.
For more information, search the Microsoft Web Site (http://www.microsoft.com) for "HTML Help".
In addition, the following companies provide cross-platform help tools
http://www.ehelp.com (formerly known as blue-sky)
http://www.solutionsoft.com/hlpbrz_av.shtml (for HelpBreeze)
http://www.winwriters.com (helpuniversity has discontinued operations)
These configurations are not supported by Progress Technical Support.
If you want to discuss the V8 Help Compiler, please contact your
Sales Representative.
Progress Software Technical Support Note # 17503