Is It Time To Rethink The Delphi Help File System?

Question

The majority of components available for Delphi do not have HTML Help files for Delphi 2009. Many components including some very popular commercial components only have HLP and CHM help files.

Many of the third-party components are no longer being actively developed but are used by many developers. As a result there is no IDE help for these components.

There were very few complaints about the old CHM help files but today there are a large number of complaints about the help file system. Maybe it is time for Codegear to rethink the type of help file system used.

One of the complaints that I have about it is even when you install components that provide HTML help files the Contents Tab becomes corrupted where by previously installed component contents are removed.

Are there possible alternatives for Codegear to consider?

Answer 1

I have the same feeling. The old help system helps me more quickly to find an answer.

Answer 2

One idea is to maybe to model it after the Delphi Wiki at: http://delphi.wikia.com/wiki/Delphi_Wiki

The wiki actually isn't set up that bad, especially with the VCL link in the left frame.

It's fairly pleasant to look at, has a decent search, includes issues, examples, cross references, and what I like the most: user comments and tips.

Actually regarding the user comments and tips, the thing I like most about the PHP documentation at www.php.net/docs.php (which I think is the best programming documentation I've seen) is the user comments and tips.

If they can integrate the great layout that you'll find at Delphi Basics into it, and allow 3rd party components to add their help files into it, then they'll have a complete reference. (But the 3rd parties will obviously have to restructure their help files to the new format - whatever it ends up as).

The wiki also has sections for Tutorials, Tips and Tricks, References and Popular Articles. And I think it could also become the all-encompassing code-repository we all would like.

An option to download the help wiki should be allowed so it can be accessed offline.

And they'll have to figure out how to get the F1 key to work to properly search the wiki/help file, whether online or offline, and give the most relevant results.

The trouble with the Wiki now is that it is not complete, and the full set of Delphi help files need to be incorporated into it.

This might be a pipedream, but something like this would be my ideal.

Answer 3

This is a pet hate of mine. The Delphi Help has just got worse, although with a recent slight improvement. I honestly believe that this is one of the things holding back its adoption.

Answer 4

Micosoft introduced Help3 for VS2010, so maybe we will see it in Delphi too:

here is a blog post which answers the question "Why A New Help System?"

http://thirdblogfromthesun.com/2010/10/the-story-of-help-in-visual-studio-2010/

It quotes an internal paper, which led to the new "Help3" project in early 2008:

"The paper described the following issues with the help experience in Visual Studio:

1. Not being able to find the information you need is a common problem. F1 Help and Search do not work as well as they should.
2. The performance of the help system – primarily start-up, topic-load, local search results – is one of the biggest problems.
3. The offline MSDN library install is fragile due to the complexities of the help system.
4. The proprietary nature of our help format offers little incentive for partners to develop authoring tools and cannot be easily adopted by developers in their own products.
5. On the content production side, the help platform saddles us with outdated tools and processes.
6. Finally, and most importantly, no single team at Microsoft owns solving these problems."