I've never got into the habit of using Lazarus help, but have just revisited it because of an extra user here who's asking "awkward questions" :-)

At a minimum, please could somebody review what I have done since I've made a couple of minor edits to the Wiki page which is referenced by the Lazarus IDE Help -> Online Help menu entry.

I've edited the Wiki page http://wiki.freepascal.org/Installing_Help_in_the_IDE adding text that explicitly notes that adding Kylix helpfiles or additional .inf files are options. This was discussed in this list several months ago, and I believe that it was agreed that any suggestion that Lazarus /requires/ Kylix helpfiles is unwise.

I note that the final link from the IDE goes straight to installing help for fpgui. Is this really appropriate, and if it is why aren't there links there to comparable instructions for GTK etc.?

I suggest that the Kylix-related stuff in http://wiki.freepascal.org/Installing_Help_in_the_IDE would actually be better on a page of its own, or moved right to the bottom of that one. What somebody ending up on that wiki page needs to see is getting local help for the RTL/FCL/LCL etc. working, not a screed on how to repurpose somebody else's files that's non-portable since it relies on proprietary software (HyperHelp).

Finally, and particularly if somebody doesn't like my changes, I suggest that while having the IDE point to a Wiki page is reasonable it would probably be wise to protect it from casual editing: Lazarus help is a sufficiently contentious issue without having new users confused because somebody has broken a link.

--
Mark Morgan Lloyd
markMLl .AT. telemetry.co .DOT. uk

[Opinions above are the author's, not those of his employers or colleagues]

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