>Download the 3rd party help system. If you purchase the printed manuals,
>you'll never use the online help system.
IYHO. my editor allows me to hook up as many .HLP files as i want, and when
i hit F1 it looks up the word (or function name...) under the cursor and
jumps directly to the correct help topic. no printed document is that
convenient.
even if Acrobat had a way to start it from the command line and pass the
name of the function to look up, it STILL would not be as good as a .HLP
file, because Acrobat is *so* slow to boot. a .HLP file loads very fast.
by the way, several people commented that "there are lots of tools to
convert .HTML into .HLP files". however, i have spent several hours on
several internet search engines and specific web sites, and i cannot find
any such recent or usable tool.
please please please, will Metrowerks or Palm provide a .HLP file of the
PalmOS 3.1 APIs for us Win32 devs? i've heard we are the majority... and
reference .HLP files are (for many people) such a significant improvement
over .PDF or printed documentation...
however, i agree that for most things other than an SDK API reference or SDK
cookbook, printed docs rule (as long as they have a good table of contents
and good index). but i would love to have the cookbook and 3 other PDFs
converted to .HLP format!
>>And depending upon the IDE your using (Delphi, Builder, VB ...) they all
>have
>>"immediate" help available for any objects; properties, functions and
>events.
>I fount myself using those help systems and 90% of the time I would print
>out the page for reference instead of keeping it on the screen. I bought
>the CW docs from computerliteracy so I don't have to print out the help
>(PDF) topics anymore. Much better than an online system (except you can't
>cut and past from a book)
IYHO. i never print out the docs. i hit F1, check parameters or something,
hit Alt-Tab to go back to my editor, make a couple changes, Alt-Tab back to
Help, read more, close Help, and continue coding. and if the word under the
cursor was not found, then the help system gives me an index, and it is
pretty easy to find my typo or whatever and find the correct API. i
switched over to this system because it actually saves me time. i used to
use printed reference docs.
hey, your system works for you. but please don't expect everyone to buy
into your system. our system is just as valid, and it would not take much
effort on Palm's part or Metrowerks' part to publish a .HLP file.
