Submitted by Jibz on 2010/05/04 03:15
I was wondering if it would be possible to provide a HTML Help (CHM) version of the InfoQube User Manual?
 
I've been browsing through it, and it looks like it would be a great help in getting into IQ, but this site is so painfully slow it's annoying to read it online.
 
The stuff inside the Welcome grid in the sample database is nice, but it's not ideal having to swap back and forth between that and whatever grid you are trying to apply the information to.
 
I searched for it of course, and read the suggestions about saving the printer friendly version, but chm is a far better format with it's index and search functionality.
 
Also, I bet a lot of users who first install IQ will quickly move to the 'Help' menu and only find 'About' there
.

Comments

 I'm looking forward to this also, it is planned by Pierre.  I recently inquired about in SNDB to CHM
 
In the meantime, I'd suggest going to -- link to nonexistent node ID 1373 -- and downloading the manual I assembled in infoqube format.
 

Jibz

2010/05/04 07:57

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Thanks I will give that a try.
 
While not ideal to browse the documentation inside the actual program (if you're in the middle of editing some field or in some dialog and have to switch grid to look something up for instance), it might prove useful.

jdonlan

2010/05/04 10:29

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 Jibz,
You can run 2 copies of IQ simultaneously so you can have the help DB open separately whilst working on your own DB.
 
HTH
John

Jibz

2010/05/04 13:36

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Ah, silly me.
 
While not ideal, that certainly helped a lot .

Another related thread:
 
this in response to Keith producing an IQ file / version of the online manual:-
[quote=Pierre_Admin]
This huge effort, Keith, merits a new feature: Item>>Recapture, to refresh a web page capture
 
Coming up soon
[/quote]
not sure if that's in Mantis (?)
 
Of course the ideal would be if one could say
Grid >>Recapture   or even better:  File >>Recapture to update all web pages
then you could update your manual at any time...
 
More interesting suggestions from Keith in the above thread www.sqlnotes.net/drupal5/index.php
 

Armando

2010/05/20 22:38

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[quote=Tom][quote=Pierre_Admin]
This huge effort, Keith, merits a new feature: Item>>Recapture, to refresh a web page capture
 
Coming up soon
[/quote]
not sure if that's in Mantis (?)
 
Of course the ideal would be if one could say
Grid >>Recapture   or even better:  File >>Recapture to update all web pages
then you could update your manual at any time...
 
More interesting suggestions from Keith in the above thread www.sqlnotes.net/drupal5/index.php
 
[/quote]
 
 
Yes, it's in mantis :
 
Update Issue0868IOHTML pane: add item>>Recapture  New featureminornew
 
 
But I like Tom's suggestion to recapture a bunch of pages. Maybe the user would just have to select all items an then click on "recapture". Or an option like "recapture item an subitems HTML content" ?
 
 

After an hour of fighting with drupal and the slow server it's running on to try and read some of the user manual, I finally caved in and threw together a perl script to massage the printer friendly version to get the chm compiler to accept it.
 
Being generated by a script, some of the links point to nowhere, but I still think it is close enough to usable that some may find it helpful.

KeithB

2010/06/01 18:00

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Hi Jibz, I've been working feverishly on a chm also, and Pierre said he would look at it soon.
 
If you want to take a look at mine, check out 
 
It's a pre-pre-pre-pre-alpha!  There are missing graphics etc, that I will be fixing.
 
Do you know the HTML compiler well?  I just self-taught myself this thing over the last week or so, and i can post source, and it would be great to have someone help (specifically, I need to know whether it's okay to go down past a child level)
 
Keith

Armando

2010/06/01 19:12

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Nice. You should work with Keith.

 
A "script solution" seems like a great solution. The implications is that the web version needs to be as clean and structured as possible so that it can be converted to CHM with minimal work.

 
In the mean time, the CHM might in the end be easier to produce and maintain. Does your  script allow you to structure and print web content with minimal user intervention ?
 
 
In a private conversation Pierre mentioned that he envisioned a special strategy for working on the manual. Since there'S nothing personal in it I'll just quote him :
 
[quote]
  1. An shared IQBase (either file-shared through Dropbox or though the "coming soon" multi-user sync) to enable cooperative work
  2. One of :
    1. A IQBase > CHM module
    2. A IQBase > topic list export (easier)
  3. In the code, link each feature to either the CHM topic (1) or to one of the HTML file (2)
[/quote]
 
(Pierre I took the liberty to quote you, but if you want to remove/replace/edit that quote, feel free.)

Jibz

2010/06/02 05:17

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I fixed a few issues with the content list and index and uploaded a new version here:
 
 
[quote=KeithB]It's a pre-pre-pre-pre-alpha!  There are missing graphics etc, that I will be fixing.
 
Do you know the HTML compiler well?  I just self-taught myself this thing over the last week or so, and i can post source, and it would be great to have someone help (specifically, I need to know whether it's okay to go down past a child level)
[/quote]
 
Looks very nice, I can see you put some more effort into styling it . I have only used the HTML compiler a few times, and I must admit I have no idea what most of the options do, I just use an example I found as a template when I need to create the project files.
 
[quote=Armando]A "script solution" seems like a great solution. The implications is that the web version needs to be as clean and structured as possible so that it can be converted to CHM with minimal work.
 
In the mean time, the CHM might in the end be easier to produce and maintain. Does your  script allow you to structure and print web content with minimal user intervention ?[/quote]
 
My goal was to be able to create a reasonably usable HTML Help version of the online manual as automated as possible, yes. At the moment the steps requires are:
 
- go to the printer friendly version of the online user manual and dump it to html complete from your browser
- run the script
- fix a few oddities (there are some images that do not have the right extension etc.)
- compile to chm

Jibz

2010/06/02 09:52

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[quote=KeithB]
How do you do that dump?
[/quote]
 
In internet explorer or firefox, go to the online manual index and press printer friendly at the bottom which gives this page
 
 
which is basically one large html file containing all of the manual.
 
I then choose File->Save As and select Web page, complete (*.htm;*.html) as type (and UTF-8 as encoding if there is a choice).
 
This saves one big html file with all the manual in it and a folder with all the graphics.
 
The script runs though that file generates a file for each node and the project files used to compile them.
 
[quote=KeithB]
Could I see that script?  (I'm not a programmer, but I'm curious)
[/quote]
 
 
Please keep in mind that this was just hacked together to get the job done, not to be pretty or efficient in any way .

Tom

2010/06/02 05:30

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Wow, we're being spoiled for choice !!
Both looking great, it's really nice to be able to navigate the manual so easily 
 

In case anyone wants to fix them, here are the issues I found in the online manual:
 
Node 57 links to an image called "index.php", it is in fact a png image.
 
Nodes 223, 34 and 861 link to 5 jpg images with random names starting with "dqmp2rv_" which do not have an extension.
 
Nodes 851, 856, 858 and 1155 use <input> tags instead of <img> tags to insert an image, this is not supported by the chm compiler.
 
You can access a node with
 
 
where N is the node number.

Pierre_Admin

2010/06/02 11:19

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Wow and re-Wow ! This looks so nice Jibz. Thanks !
 
So I guess, the plan is to keep working on the Drupal based doc and periodically, convert it to CHM using this script ? And I will link the IQ UI to pages in the documentation.
 
If this system is both flexible and powerful, perhaps it would be good to add "See also" links at the bottom of some pages.
 
Thanks everyone.
 

Armando

2010/06/02 11:48

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[quote=Pierre_Admin]
Wow and re-Wow ! This looks so nice Jibz. Thanks !
 
So I guess, the plan is to keep working on the Drupal based doc and periodically, convert it to CHM using this script ? And I will link the IQ UI to pages in the documentation.
 
If this system is both flexible and powerful, perhaps it would be good to add "See also" links at the bottom of some pages.
 
Thanks everyone.
 
[/quote]
 
I very much like this solution as it's simple.
 
Someone will need to do the "fixing" part though... But from what jibz said, it's probably not too long :
 
[quote]
- fix a few oddities (there are some images that do not have the right extension etc.)
[/quote]
 

KeithB

2010/06/02 20:36

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[quote=Pierre_Admin]
 
So I guess, the plan is to keep working on the Drupal based doc and periodically, convert it to CHM using this script ? And I will link the IQ UI to pages in the documentation.
 
[/quote] That's a great plan.  Jibz did an absolutely marvelous job here. It will be so much easier to maintain.( I do believe at some point, the index will have to be enhanced manually, and I have a manual page started up for that).
This is one giant step forward--it will help both users, and helpers on the manual to much more easily see gaps and problems with it...
 
 
 

KeithB

2010/06/02 22:24

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[quote=Jibz]
... issues I found in the online manual:
 
Node 57 links to an image called "index.php", it is in fact a png image.
 
>>I think I fixed it 
 
Nodes 223, 34 and 861 link to 5 jpg images with random names starting with "dqmp2rv_" which do not have an extension.
 >>it appears these are external; I'll look at them tomorrow 
 
Nodes 851, 856, 858 and 1155 use <input> tags instead of <img> tags to insert an image, this is not supported by the chm compiler.
 >>I believe I fixed these
.
[/quote]
Thanks so much for all your generosity!

Jibz

2010/06/03 04:53

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Thank you for fixing those pages KeithB, that makes the process a lot easier .
 
One of the issues with the conversion was that it blindly turned all drupal links into internal links which meant links to forum posts did not work. I think I managed to fix this now.
 
Here is the latest compiled HTML Help version and script:
 

jan_rifkinson

2010/06/03 20:48

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 another stupid question from me: is this supposed to be viewed in htnl pane or as external file? If within htm file, plse tell me how

KeithB

2010/06/03 21:04

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[quote=jan_rifkinson]
: is this supposed to be viewed in htnl pane or as external file?
[/quote]
It's standalone right now (external file).  Just double click it, or file>open. I leave it running all the time.
 
Pierre plans on integrating it, I would guess very soon; then F1 should open it.

jan_rifkinson

2010/06/04 11:02

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 Thanks, KeithB. That's what I thought but -- as I'm no Techie -- I thought I might be missing something. Actually what I did was created a new Help Grid w a single link it it. I don't know if that's the best way....

Thanks for all the great work on something very useful guys!
 
Note that it's possible that some user will run into the infamous problem where no content appears in their CHM reader.
 
Just do that :
 
1- Right click on the *.CHM file
2- Click on "properties"
3- In the properties dialog go to the "General" tab
4- Below the advanced button at the bottom right, click on "Unblock" (note that this button will disappear once the file is unblocked)
5- Click on "apply".

That should do it.
 
I don't know if this could be put somewhere, but it's a very common problem (with XP at least, I don't know about other Windows flavours)

KeithB

2010/06/03 13:12

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[quote=Armando]
 
I don't know about other Windows flavours)
[/quote]
It does the same things on Windows 7. Thanks for mentioning this.
 
Once the chm is integrated and part of the distribution, this shouldn't be a problem.

OriginalHotrodder

2010/06/04 01:46

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Thank you, thank you, thank you.  In my opinion this is exactly what was needed to help new users get a quick start and it's going to open InfoQube to a whole new group. 
The chm file is so much easier on the eye and most users are already used to reading a help file so it's a natural.  
I recommend adding a link to the latest chm file on the welcome to the community website as shown below. 
 
Welcome to the InfoQube Community web site. This space belongs to you !
 
   >>> Are you looking for the InfoQube Main web site ? (news, download, donations, licensing info) <<<
  • Newcomers will want to read the User Manual (in progress... or in the familiar help file format here
  • )To view a summary of the recent activity, with user-specific highlighting, open the New / Updated Posts page .
 
Great work guys!
Ed

Like KeithB noticed, I put the section titles into the index for lack of anything better. A few sections did not contain a section number which I hadn't taken into account. This version should fix that.
 
Given a dump from Firefox the only thing I am fixing in the output from the script now is the first item in index.hhc. This is because the top level item in the manual is the link to the tree-view, I change that to be a normal page that points to index.html instead. I suppose I could hardwire it into the script, but it's no big deal to fix.
 
Here is the latest compiled HTML Help version and script:
 
 
 
Edit: I found a bunch of broken links and added a fix to the script, re-uploaded both.

KeithB

2010/06/04 12:34

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[quote=Jibz]
 
Edit: I found a bunch of broken links and added a fix to the script, re-uploaded both.
[/quote]
I fixed the 3 remaining external images. If you find anything else, it would be great if you could put them in -- link to nonexistent node ID 1693 --
 
I just had to go install Perl and run yesterday's script.--that is really neat how it does it's magic.

Pierre_Admin

2010/06/05 16:12

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Hi Jibz,
 
Thank you so much of this work. Do you mind if I link directly to this DropBox file ? This way, users could click and get the updated version. If yes, it would be best if the date was removed from the file name.
 
Thanks again
 
Pierre

Jibz

2010/06/06 03:38

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Btw, it looks like you maybe put the link in the wrong place, it's down at the line with documentation on using this site:
 
[quote]
  • Documentation on how to use this web site can be found here or in the familiar help file format here
[/quote]

Pierre_Admin

2010/06/07 14:13

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Got it !  Fixed.