[fpc-pascal] OS/2 INF help support

[Graeme Geldenhuys]

Marco van de Voort het geskryf:
> 
> Or maybe because it cached the search index to disk, like most helpfiles.

As far as I can see, from reading various INF docs is that the IFP
Compiler generates the index and keywords at compile-time and are built
into the single .INF files. Also every single word only appears once in
the INF files, all other instances are simply pointers. So this
increases the lookup speed a lot as far as I can see. I guess this
contributes to the size factor as well. The VisualAge C++ for OS/2 Users
Guide is 1300 pages (with screenshots) and the INF file is only 4.5MB in
size! God knows how they managed that!

PS:
It was so cool going through my old software boxes. VisualAge C++ for
OS/2 came with 5 printed manuals and a CD-ROM. The box it came in is
think cardboard and measures in around 30x30x30 centimetres. HUGE! :-)
You don't see that these days!

PS #2:
I found the source code for Sibyl IDE which contains a GUI help viewer
(NewView) implemented in Object Pascal (I think it's Free Pascal
Compiler compatible).

Regards,
  - Graeme -

-- 
fpGUI Toolkit - a cross-platform GUI toolkit using Free Pascal
http://opensoft.homeip.net/fpgui/