I would like to convert an HTML file or a Word file (.doc, .docx or .rtf) to a .chm file. I searched for ways of doing this and they all said that I should install a program on my computer. Is there a way of doing this without installing anything (online, with a program initially installed on Windows or with a USB version of a program)? I also accept a CHM editor as long as it doesn't need to be installed. I found a way to open a .html with hh.exe (the program that opens .chm) but as soon as I rename it from help.html to help.chm it doesn't work.
As far as I know the answer is – no. I've seen never an online version or a USB solution for effective HTMLHelp (CHM) compiling.
You can’t rename a foobar.html to foobar.chm and get this working for a single file, because CHM is like a zipped webpage with all files needed inside and some more internal files e.g. for full text search or an index with keywords. Please see snapshot of a special view with FAR HTML below (left side only, navigation pane).
You can't rename from .zip to .chm too, because the internal structure of a CHM file is complicated and you need a compiler for generating CHM's.
Background:
Please note that the proprietary file format is normally generated by MS HH Workshop (hhw.exe). It’s nearly 20 years old und was first shipped with IE4 and Windows 95. It’s deep integrated to the Windows operating system.
The HTML Help compiler is part of MS HTML Help Workshop (HHW.exe). This is a free, very basic authoring system provided by Microsoft and must be installed before any other authoring tool (e.g. such as FAR HTML) can compile to a .chm help file.
HTML Help Workshop (HHW) installer is called HtmlHelp.EXE and contains a copy of the HTML Help Run-time installer (HHUpd.EXE). There are a few Independent Software Vendor (ISV) that install HHA.DLL and itcc.dll separately instead of installing the full MS HH Workshop (htmlhelp.exe). This is generally an OK practice if the ISV knows what they are doing. But there are many problems. ISVs please keep in mind the safest approach is probably to install the full Workshop.
HTML Help is in maintenance mode, which means no new features are expected for either the runtime or the compiler. All mainstream development on HH has stopped – but HTMLHelp (.chm help files) is still recommended as software application help (for offline (local) help).
At the time of writing (announced 1996-Feb) HTMLHelp is the only Microsoft help platform available for general application help. WinHelp is deprecated and no longer ships with the Windows OS. Visual Studio products such as MS Help 2 & Help Viewer only ship with VS.
Here's word2chm.
It converts word docs to chm help files.
https://sourceforge.net/projects/word2chm/
You will need Microsoft's HTML Help Workshop installed for this to work.
Another more robust program is:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/nuhelp/
Requirements of nuhelp:
1) Word 2003, 2007, 2010 or 2013.
2) HTML Help Workshop (included in zip file)
3) .Net 3.5 Client Profile (already on most computers)
I created a webpage several years ago. Back then I was using Adobe GoLive! to achieve that. But now, there is no adobe GoLive any more and I don't have a useful application for creating a web project. So what I want to achieve is: a good looking online presence for my project. I want to use the new stuff as well, like HTML5 and CSS3. I don't think that I will need beans or J2EE, because it is more about the design and not the functionality. Later on I will include the web project into my Apache server. So the question is: which tool can help me to develop a modern website, what would you advice?
Thank You
Actually I use NetBeans 8 for the following reasons:
it's very strong and containt so many features
i supports ftp
ii supports CSS3 , HTML5
iii powerful , autoComplete
it's open-Source application so it's free
it keeps the history of your files and saves all the updates so you can restore any file
situation you made before
it's easy to use.
It's a good programming tool
SECOND: I suggest using xampp instead of abache server
it actually includes abache and some other features like mysql
so it's easy to deal with it instead of dealing with many programs :)
I strongly recommend 'IUEditor'
Free license. Ownership is 2,000$, monthly license is more than 50$. But if you request startup license they offer free license.
CSS3 and HTML5 : you can use any kind of website.
Back-end support : That's only one web editor which supports backend, such as django and angularJS
Supports GIT.
I tried more than 10 web editors, but IUEditor works best.
Now that TideSDK is effectively dead, I've been looking into alternative 'wrappers' to run HTML/CSS/JS applications as stand-alone desktop applications. The three viable options I have run across so far, are NW.js (formerly node-webkit), brackets-shell, and Electron (formerly atom-shell).
The problem is that there does not appear to be a sufficiently complete comparison between the three in terms of feature set, compatibility, etc. I'm hoping to turn this into a more-or-less canonical thread on the (objective) differences between the three, in particular regarding:
Platform support; operating systems, dependencies, etc.
Language feature support, as far as HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript are concerned. Think things like "does HTML5 video work, and if yes, what codecs are available?"
Non-standard extra features, such as tray icons, popup notifications, and OS-rendered menu bars.
Extensibility; eg. ability to 'plug in' native code, talk to Node.js, and so on.
Architecture; in particular the architectural differences that affect daily usage as a developer.
Debugging; included development tools, compatibility with commonly used tools like node-inspector, etc.
... and so on.
What are the objective, technical differences that matter when making a choice between them as an application developer?
I did similar research about two months ago, and in the end I went with node-webkit. The biggest upside on node-webkit is node.js and npm. The package management of npm is really nice, and node has well done filesystem access.
Brackets-shell looked interesting, but other than a nice IDE I didn't really get what made this one as good or better than the rest. They are very clear that "The brackets-shell is only maintained for use by the Brackets project ", that screams run away to me.
https://github.com/adobe/brackets-shell#overview
Atom-shell seems to be recently active, but it seems much like brackets in that they are really writing and editor/IDE that just happens to be attached to a webkit runtime. It also is built on top of node.js. This one has the downside of being difficult to search for stuff online without being reminded of your middle school chemistry.
I really don't want an new editor, and most programmers have their favorite already. For the actual application development, they pretty much work the same, and should, since they all use webkit. You basically write 90-95% of it like a website, and then deal with the native parts, and some config.
These things are true for all three of them
platforms - runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux
language support - HTML5, CSS3 and Javascript : since they run javascript you can download and run nearly any library/framework that you want.
The big caveat on webkit is codec support. Typically you will have problems with non-free video codecs, unless you rebuild the dll/so to support them. For example the shipped node-webkit won't play mp4 video.
I've been playing with Atom-Shell over the last few days, and I am loving it so far.
The best part about it is that it's backed by GitHub.. which should allow you to settle into the platform for the long term, especially if it gains a large following. It's also made possible by direct Node.js improvements courtesy of a contract with StrongLoop, who is a major Node.js contributor (they claim to employ more Node.js core developers than any other company, even Joyent).
I've also found it rather comfortable to get started. It took me about a day to learn the structure and get my first proof of concept running. Very cool.
Bullet Points:
Platform support: Windows, Linux, Mac OSX (More Info Here)
Language feature support: HTML5, CSS3, JS via Chromium - so far, zero issues, but I have not tested video specifically.
Native Features: Native App Menus, Task Tray Support, Global Hotkeys, Protocol Handler Support (that I've seen so far)
Extensibility: Excellent Node.js integration, both the client and server can "require" Node.js modules and natives. I've also successfully tested Bower libraries (incl jQuery) without issue.
Architecture: Covered in the other points, but in general its very smooth.
Update (11/25/14): I've not yet found use case for Atom-Shell in any official capacity, but I have used it to build a few small apps for my own use, the most complex being an app that pulls my time logs from my PM software and creates Paypal invoices.
My opinion of the platform remains positive. It's pretty awesome.
On my time invoicing app I successfully brought in Bootstrap 3's Dashboard Example Template and a few node modules (bluebird, Paypal SDK, Teamwork PM Client) to create a mildly complex app. It took me a few days and does its job well.
I really cannot think of anything negative to say about Atom-Shell, its solid, stable, fast, and easy to code for. I hope this helps someone.
Besides fully support Web standards, NW.js supports a list of non-standard features for native app development including:
Protect JS source code by compiling them into machine code: https://github.com/nwjs/nw.js/wiki/Protect-JavaScript-source-code-with-v8-snapshot
Jailed devtools: https://github.com/nwjs/nw.js/wiki/Devtools-jail-feature
Additional security model with which you can do more in DOM: https://github.com/nwjs/nw.js/wiki/Security https://github.com/nwjs/nw.js/wiki/Changes-to-DOM
enhanced file dialog: https://github.com/nwjs/nw.js/wiki/File-dialogs
kiosk mode: https://github.com/nwjs/nw.js/wiki/The-Kiosk-mode
supports for a growing list of chrome.* API, include chrome.webRequest so you can intercept HTTP requests from DOM: https://github.com/nwjs/nw.js/issues/518
support for rich notifications, print preview, many more chrome.* APIs, Chrome Apps and other Chromium features starting from 0.13.0-alpha0
There is much more to see in the wiki including Menu, Tray, etc.
I've been working with brackets-shell for some time now, here are some of my findings:
brackets-shell is primarily developed as a shell under the brackets IDE project, but the project can run any web application. You just need to point it to your own html page. Clint Berry wrote an excellent tutorial about doing just this: http://clintberry.com/2013/html5-desktop-apps-with-brackets-shell/
The project is backed by Adobe and has a lot of activity
Documentation could be better
platform support They support Windows, Mac and Linux. An installer package can also be created. I only tested it on Win and Mac, it works great.
feature support html5, css3, js. Html5 video does not work out of the box, but is very easy to enable (by default the ffmpegsumo.dll is not copied into the installer, if you change the script to copy it it will work).
native features menu bar, 'open file with', file system access. I am not using any of these, as all I need is the communication with the node process.
extensibility a nodejs is built in, and you can communicate with node from your web application. In this way, you can use node to access the filesystem etc.
architecture The project is well set up, keeping a nice separation between the shell project and your own web app running inside it. In your own application, a global appshell object is available which gives you access to the brackets functionality (filesystem access, communication with node process, ...).
One thing to note (if you care), is that the Electron officially does not support Windows Vista. Vista's market share is about halfway between OSX 10.9 and 10.10 (both of which are fully supported by Electron). Vista is also still supported by Microsoft until 2017.
NW.js works fine in Vista, as well as OSX 10.9+. NW.js works on Ubuntu, Debian, Zorin, Manjaro, Arch, and most other Debian based Linux OS's. Electron has refused PR's to fix Ubuntu specific bugs on their platform which is concerning.
NW.js works in XP too. Currently 18% of the market is still on XP. So if you're desktop application is more general purpose or wants to have access to the late adopters still on XP, you're probably better off with NW.js (0.14.7) as Electron only supports Win 7 and up.
If you use NW.js 0.12.3 you can also support OSX 10.6+ and very old versions of Debian based Linux OS's like Ubuntu, and Win XP+. It is recommended that you do special builds just for those legacy systems though and use the newer versions of NW.js for newer OS's.
I am iOS developer. I know just a couple of languages and I hate html because of the lack of possibilities there.. I've just red about objective-j. When I try to open any code in web browser (last versions of Safari, Google Chrome) it loads increadibly slow..
Is it normal?
How to make it work fast?
Are there any other languages similar to c, objective-c that I can use for creating a web-site?
And another queastion coming with: How can I make Xcode work with objective-j? I use coda 2.0 at the moment.
Make sure you run jake deploy to create the stripped and precompiled version of the app you're testing. Most sample code out there will be run in uncompiled "debug" mode which is great when you're developing but in actual deployment you'll want the precompiled version of your app.
Also, the current development version of Cappuccino and Objective-J is much faster than the last release 0.9.6, thanks to a new, better compiler. Keep an eye out for a future Cappuccino 0.9.7 release.
I think if you write a significant app in Cappuccino you'll find the load time to be absolutely comparable with other large web apps such as Gmail.
Currently you can only use Xcode to edit the user interface of a Cappuccino app. It does not work well to edit Cappuccino code itself since the latest versions of Xcode don't include the necessary plugin framework. You can learn more about good editor options in the development environment tutorial.
I am not familiar with other languages similar to Objective-C for the web, but Intel has an Objective-C to JavaScript compiler here.
I am getting into ActionScript-ing and SQLLite development.
What are the essential development IDEs and utility tools I should get set up for a smooth development experience?
It would be great if you categorize - as free and paid-for-software.
I am accustomed with the Microsoft "free" experience in terms of - Visual Studio Express edition or SQL Server Express edition.
Are there similar counter parts for this platform?
FlashDevelop - Open source IDE for flash but no visual designer. As far as SQLLite you can actually create and manage the databases all with actionscript but if you want to edit/create them with an IDE there are several open/free solutions, from a quick google search we have:
//SQLLite DB manager/admin tool made in Adobe AIR
http://www.dehats.com/drupal/?q=node/58
//Same idea but open source made with QT so probably C/C++
http://sourceforge.net/projects/sqlitebrowser/
//FlashDevelop
http://www.flashdevelop.org/wikidocs/index.php?title=Main_Page
Flashdevelop is pretty much king when it comes to code hinting/completion, pretty much what you'd expect in features from microsoft VS IDEs. There is also a pretty good user base and thus many tutorials/documentation and project templates.
I too use the DB admin tool formerly from www.dehats.com, which has since been renamed Lita and put on GitHub . However, a significant drawback to Lita is its complete lack of runtime error reporting when executing SQL queries.
Mauricio Piacentini is an excellent programmer, but Flash developers should be aware that his
SQLite Database Browser does not support the non-standard features added to AIR's version of SQLite, such as additional column affinity types.
So, as a complement to Lita I've been using Paul Robertson's Run! app. It doesn't have as many features as Lita, but it supports AIR's version of SQLite and it does report errors in your SQL queries.
Like Ascension, I'm a fan of FlashDevelop.