| Keep this in mind as a statement of direction for the future!
..and, if you are worried about migration, consider how many
other developers are in the same boat. We need to pay attention
to where Microsoft (and the rest of the boat) goes with this.
I doubt that Microsoft will be able to implement this change
without providing a smooth migration path for developers.
IMHO,
Kathy
From: US1RMC::"[email protected]" "MAIL-11 Daemon" 8-FEB-1996
18:25:34.38
To: [email protected]
CC:
Subj: More info about WinHelp 4.0 annoucement
This was posted on the comp.os.ms-windows.programmer.winhelp Usenet newsgroup
**************************************************************************
In article <[email protected]> [email protected] (Mary Deaton)
wrote:
At about 1:15 pm Pacific Time today, Ralph Walden, development lead for the
Windows Help group at Microsoft, told a seminar at the WinHelp 96
conference in Seattle that by the time the next version of the Windows
operating system is released (Windows '97 in early 1997), Help will no
longer be done using the current WinHelp compiler or viewer and that Help
content will be prepared not with RTF, but with HTML.
Walden said that details are still being discussed at Microsoft, but the
intent was to produce a browser-independent structure. He could not
provide details on how context-sensitive Help, such as What's This topics
in dialog boxes, would be implemented in this new scheme. The new scheme
will assume HTML3 standards, but Microsoft will supply some proprietary
functionality to accommodate the context-sensitive environment.
Walden was unable to supply any other details.
Addendum:
After dropping that bombshell, Ralph later told individuals that the first
task will be developing a compiled binary in order to do context-sensitive
Help. That is scheduled for an August release. Following that, we will
begin to see the actual HTML come together in order to know what features
we will have. Most conference attendees I spoke with thought this was the
right move for Microsoft to make in order to reduce the now confusing
number of content development tools coming out of Redmond. Most authoring
tool vendors, after the first moments of shock, were happy: they know have
to support only one standard, HTML, rather than both HTML and RTF.
Several, of course, already allow you to output HTML from their tools
(HyperSuite from Hyperact comes to mind) and others have RTF to HTML
conversion utilities (Blue Sky, for example).
**************************************************************************
end of forwarded post
* * * * * * * * *
Patti Anastasia
[email protected]
508-684-6788
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