In Game studio 5 the help files were in HTML format
Game studio 6 saw the help file change to CHM format

I miss the HTML format because it was easy for me to modify things to suit my
taste and workstyle.

Couldn't the editors be made so the user can select between the two formats as they desire?

Well, the CHM is just a series of linked HTML files in a compiled format. I guess it's possible for them to do that but I just don't see the point. I mean, why would anyone want to modify the manual?

FixxeR

Yes I know that that chm is a compiled set of HTML files. But to edit them you need to decompile it, make your changes and then recompile it. Whereas with straight HTML, if you want to change or add something on a page all you need to do is right click/view source and make your changes and save.

As to 'why would anyone want to modify the manual?'

Well, if You don't see the need to do it then fine, leave things the way they are, thats why I suggested that it be user configurable.

As for me,
1) I liked being able to easily add things that aren't covered in the 'official' manual.
2) Or if something is covered but not in a way that makes sense to me then it was easy to change it so that it does.
3) I liked being able to put my own code snippets in the help file
4) I liked being able keep the orriginal helpfiles intact and add my own content through new pages and hyperlinking to them.

Above All
5) I liked that all the extra information I discovered via research was available to me (after editing the help files) via the F1 key. No trying to remember where I saved that piece of information on the harddrive. That's why we have help files, isn't it?


I don't know if anyone else feels the same way as I do, maybe i'm peculiar, but as I said in my orriginal post, it suits my workstyle and this is the place to make suggestions for new engine or editor features. I am just making a suggestion.

CHM is the standard for Windows help, so we would get a lot of complaints if we went back to HTML (or..ick...pdf ).

The nice thing is, since it is a standard, you can find a lot of tools out there that will let you edit CHM. There are even tools that allow you to break a CHM apart into HTML pages (do a Google search).

OK, I guess I'll give up the idea.
Although, I wish people would read posts properly, because I actually didn't ask for you to go back to HTML
I asked for the file that gets used when you click the help menu be user configurable so that I could choose whatever format I wanted.
The offical format would still be chm

But you realize that someone will have to update and maintain the pure HTML version. It's more work that just doesn't need to be done, IMHO. I'd rather have the Conitec people dedicating most of their time to the engine instead of two version of the manual, .

FixxeR

But I wasn't asking for 2 versions of the help file. I would create and maintain my own version of the help file in HTML format. Please read the post properly

Straight HTML has a lot disadvantages. It requires extra code for index creation and search functions, must be opened in a browser, and is a lot slower and more space-consuming than CHM.

This is the reason why almost all software packages, including ours, have abandoned HTML-based help files some years ago, and switched to CHM. I'm afraid we won't go back. If you want to edit the file you can relatively easily decompile and re-compile it.

Search for Microsoft HTML Help Workshop. It's downloadable for free on the Microsoft page.
It can decompile the 3dgs manual to a set of HTML pages.

Do this once and then you cna proceed as before. Why compile it again? You can keep the HTML version.

Of course it's some work to start up the tool and click the decompile button, but hey - if I read your post it should be worth to spend those 5 minutes.

Firoball
Yep, I already do that, and it works fine. The only thing is, I cannot point Wed or Med to use my version instead of the chm so it is not quite the same as before. That is all I was asking for. The abilty for me to tell the editor to use something other than the provided help file. It is only a small inconvenience to me and I have already accepted that connitec are not going to do annything on this.