#AmigaGuide
16 messages in this thread
Greetings from Belgium!
Can anyone out there tell me where to find detailed information about writing
AmigaGuide files? I've cracked the secret of making an index node, but would
like to more about:
– bold/italic
– displaying pictures
Not wanting to be disloyal, but while I'm at it can anyone tell me if Hyperbook
is still available? The results it gives sem to be just what I want. I'm not
interested in full-scale multimedia, just in being able to mix text and
pictures on an on-line page. Baldric – what's yours called? – is an A2000 with
a hard drive and extra RAM, running 3.1 since last weekend.
Hope to hear from you soon.
Niels,
Off the thread subject, but you use an Amiga and you live in Belgium, so I just
had to introduce myself! Are you in Brussels.
Pete, Sterrebeek
Baldric… like in Black Adder?
There is a program I know of (AmigaGuide is _not_ one of them) that lets you
combine text & graphics and is AmigaGuide compatible. It's called HotHelp3 and
is from Maxon, makers of MaxonTwist2 (according to magazine reviews by far the
fastest DB on the Amiga), MaxonCinema4D, MaxonBasic3 (said to be even
compatible to the original AmigaBasic!), MaxonPascal, MaxonC++3 (AT&T 3.0
standard, class library, fully integrated development with Editor Edward,
Source level debugger (Developer version only), Online Help (guess which
product they use?), MaxonCAD (one of the best 2D CAD programs on the Amiga &
PC), MaxonWord, MaxonPaint, MaxonMagic (Screensaver & more), … my feeling is
they try to be for the Amiga software marketplace what MicroSloth is for the PC
– Jack of all trades, master of… some! I think they deserve to be successful,
the way they still support the Amiga… BTW, HotHelp3 is by Bernstein Zirkel
who once had a PD game out which was called Risk! (like the game by Parker, and
the best version on the Amiga). The HotHelp3 viewer is freely distributable but
you can't actually _create_ projects with that. For that you need the Developer
version which is priced at DM 69 in Germany which is about US$ 45.
Cheers,
// Christian "ELP" Busse
\X/ near Frankfurt, Germany
Christian,
Can you post the Hothelp viewer here. You said it would read AmigaGuide files
yes?
._ _ _ INTERNET: mshea@math.arizona.edu
| | |ichael _>hea COMPUSERVE: 76665,3360
Michael,
I just had a go at trying the AmigaGuide feature of my HotHelp installation
with following results:
1) HotHelp 3 displays AmigaGuide files alright, BUT they have to be entered
into the "project list" using the HotHelpProject tool.
2) Where AmigaGuide (or MultiView) have pushbuttons for keywords which react on
a single click, HotHelp shows them as text in another colour (rather like
Windoze Help) which needs double-clicking.
3) A "special" version of hothelp.library (similar to AmigaGuide.library, only
better) is freely distributable which enables software authors to incorporate
HotHelp functionality into their programs and distribute them freely.
4) I don't know whether or not the HotHelpProject tool is freely distributable
but I'll try and ask Maxon tomorrow. (Also whether there's an English version
available as my version of HotHelp is all in German…).
Cheers,
// Christian "ELP" Busse
\X/ near Frankfurt, Germany
What I would really like to see is an AmigaGuide reader that would allow
searching, at least within the current node.
._ _ _ INTERNET: mshea@math.arizona.edu
| | |ichael _>hea COMPUSERVE: 76665,3360
I don't know how much good searching would be if it wasn't document-wide. I
guess the problem is external links, but certainly searching should have been
implemented. I curse its lack regularly.
Mr. Zombie – now 76375,1776 – now on a WarpEngine 3040!
>I don't know how much good searching would be if it wasn't document-wide. >I
guess the problem is external links, but certainly searching should have >been
implemented. I curse its lack regularly.
Well, in a well written AmigaGuide document, it is usually easy to locate the
information you want. My main reason for desiring search features at least at
the node level, is that I am now using KarmaHelp. With a little reorganization
of the locations of document files on my hard disks, I am now able to hit a
hotkey and an AmigaGuide document pops up that has links to all my docs, even
the text only ones. Search features would be very usefull when I read a plain
text file with AmigaGuide, as I could quickly locate the section of the
document I need.
._ _ _ INTERNET: mshea@math.arizona.edu
| | |ichael _>hea COMPUSERVE: 76665,3360
How is KarmaHelp? I tried a similar system, HyperHelp, a while ago, that was
supposed to give me context-sensitive help in any app, but I never got it
working right.
Mr. Zombie – now 76375,1776 – now on a WarpEngine 3040!
I tried Hyperhelp too and I also could not get it to work, plus the fact that
it wasn't really what I was looking for anyway.
I REALLY LIKE KarmaHelp though. Set the tooltype called Helpdir and it will
look in that directory for all text/guide files. If you have subdirectories of
Helpdir, it will show those too as links and when you click on a directory link
the guide files in that subdirectory show up as buttons and can be read. You
can have any number of directory levels.
One thing I did not want to do was have all my doc files in one directory on
one partitian, but I used the Tao device that came with WShell and assigned
HELP: to a doc directory I set up on each of my partitians. Then I set the
tooltype HelpDir=HELP: and now I have a single guide file to access all my text
and guide docs. I love it.
._ _ _ INTERNET: mshea@math.arizona.edu
| | |ichael _>hea COMPUSERVE: 76665,3360
I have played with Karma and have finnaly got it the way I want.
I like it!
You do have to stick your .guide and any other docs you want in a single
directory that Karma looks at but I like that too. I was always misplacing docs
before.
One suggestion: Change the default hotkey to something else or you will lose
HELP key support on proggy's like AP.
I made mine LSHIFT HELP, and it works great.
Zeddock Miller
Zeddock Miller
>You do have to stick your .guide and any other docs you want in a single
>directory that Karma looks ….
Not if you have the Tao device that came with WShell. Here is how it works. I
make the assignment:
assign HELP: tao:dh0:docs,dh1:docs,dh2:docs,dh3:docs
This assigns Help: to all these directorys, but in a more useful way than the
add option to the assign command, because I can
cd help: dir
at it will list all the files in dh0:docs, dh1:docs, etc. Assigning HELP: to
all thest directorys with
assign HELP: dh0/docs assign HELP: dh1/docs add
.
.
.
if you cd to HELP: you can only read/write to dh0:docs. The Tao device also
allows KarmaHelp see the document and subdirectorys in all these directories. I
like this as I can for instance keep the docs of all my programs in the dh1:
partitian in the dh1:docs directory, in case I am using the WB and just wish to
click the icon for doc.
>One suggestion: Change the default hotkey to something else or you will >lose
HELP key support on proggy's like AP.
Been there, done that. I use control-help. I also do something else useful.
Each time I use karmahelps CX_POPUP hotkey, it reads HELPDIR and creates a new
t:master.guide. As I have LOTS of docs, this takes a few seconds. What I did
was set up a MagicCX function key macro to read t:master.guide with multiview.
Works great.
._ _ _ INTERNET: mshea@math.arizona.edu
| | |ichael _>hea COMPUSERVE: 76665,3360
Michael,
today I phoned Maxon. The HotHelp _Viewer_ is PD. To be able to develop own
projects you need the Developer Version. There is an "EasyHotHelp" package
which is in the PD and they'll send me a disk with this which I'm allowed to
upload here which I'll do as soon as I get it. Will probably take till next
weekend. This package will contain the HotHelp Viewer, HH library and a few
demo HotHelp projects so you can get a glimpse of what it can do. It'll also
enable you to view AmigaGuide files (that's the reason why it's PD – they want
it to become the universal surrogate for AmigaGuide).
So, just a little patience…
Cheers,
// Christian "ELP" Busse
\X/ near Frankfurt, Germany
Great. I would like try HotHelp. While I think ApAssist is nice, I don't like
the fact that in order to get it to run smoothly, you have to split your
document into so many little files. It remindes me of all the files you find in
a typical MSDOS program's directorys. It seems like it may make writing the
docs a little harder too. Maybe Steve would like to comment. I know Ben will.
8^)….
._ _ _ INTERNET: mshea@math.arizona.edu
| | |ichael _>hea COMPUSERVE: 76665,3360
Niels,
have a look at AMIGAG.LHA from library 2 here in this forum. It will
contain the latest official documentation.
– wkc – … via AP from Hamburg, Germany
Hi Niels,
Maybe you will want to try HEDDLEY.LHA, here in AmigaUser Text Utilities. As I
understand, it's to compose and edit AmigaGuide Databases.
with AutoPilot from Germany -yours truly
* Derek *