Help manual revised

[Richard Russell]

You could post-process the HTML pages; if all of them are like the new one (which I just discovered they're not), you'd just have to find each "<HR>" then the following "<H2>" & extract its text and anchor value, build a list of those & insert it close to the top.

When you say "You could" I presume you mean "one could". You have no idea what I could or couldn't do, especially given the state of my cognitive decline, which inexorably reduces what I can do, or would want to risk attempting to do.

Not surprisingly, I was interested to see in the news today reports of the development of a simple blood test to diagnose early-stage Alzheimer's disease. In particular, they referred to the current 'gold standard' tests - an MRI and PET scan - as being too expensive and time-consuming for widespread use.

It's exactly those two scans that I received, nearly seven years ago now, although the results were ambiguous: the MRI scan showing clear signs of neuro-degeneration ("e.g. Alzheimer's disease") but the PET scan not seeing evidence of Beta-amyloid plaques then.

It would be informative to repeat those tests now, but that's not going to happen.

[JeremyNicoll]

When you say "You could" I presume you mean "one could". You have no idea what I could or couldn't do, especially given the state of my cognitive decline, which inexorably reduces what I can do ...

I've got cognitiveea decline too, albeit for a different reason. I have days when I'm not even awake, except eg for loo visits etc.

But you're having a good patch; you've posted a lot recently & it's all lucid.

If post-processing the html required use of an html/xml-aware parser, I wouldn't suggest it ... but it's simple.
Lines of generated(?) html are short. Each of the significant sections (of at least the bbcwin3 file) have an HR tag immediately before them & an H2 after that. They're dead-easy to find.

If the sections & their dividers are going to remain unchanged, this only needs done once.

... or would want to risk attempting to do.

Is there a risk? It's not as if I was asking for changes to the BBC interpreter, some of which you have done quite recently.

In the first place all one needs to do is scan a page's simple html & extract some data from it. Converting that to a list of topics is easy. Inserting it into the original page is easy. Once that's done some pointing & clicking will tell you if it works or not. Updated pages needn't be uploaded unless they work.

[Richard Russell]

If the sections & their dividers are going to remain unchanged, this only needs done once.

You have not explained how what you propose can be achieved without breaking the CHM and PDF versions.

I asked this question before, and I do so again:

Open the BB4W HTML Help (CHM) viewer and tell me exactly where it would be appropriate for your Table of Contents / list of links to appear.

Answer that specific question, without side-tracking into irrelevant detail: where would you have it appear in the CHM and PDF?

[RNBW]

Hi Richard
You refer to CHM and PDF versions of the BBC BASIC SDL2 Help Manual. All I can find is the manual produced online.
I like to work with offline documentation. Is there a CHM or PDF version available. If so, could you advise how I can obtain them.
I would be most grateful.
By the way, a belated Happy New Year!

[Richard Russell]

Is there a CHM or PDF version available. If so, could you advise how I can obtain them.

The references to CHM and PDF versions of the manual apply to BBC BASIC for Windows only, sorry. CHM is effectively a Windows-only format and, as discussed earlier, there isn't (as far as I know) a cross-platform reader that I could use to provide a similar facility in BBC BASIC for SDL 2.0. An AI query suggested eWriter but when I looked into it there was no reader available for Linux.

The PDF version of the manual is generated from the CHM version using the CHM to PDF Pro tool, hence the absence of a PDF version for BBCSDL too. You are not alone in wishing for an offline version of the BBCSDL manual, and if you or anybody else can suggest a way that could be produced without manual re-formatting I would be very interested.

When BBC BASIC for Windows was released, 25 years ago this year, 24/7 internet access was a luxury very few people had, so an offline manual was essential. That's very different now - the idea of not being connected to the internet is quite scary! - so I am less concerned about there not being an offline version of the BBC BASIC for SDL 2.0 manual. But it would be nice to have.

Of course the BB4W and BBCSDL manuals have a lot in common, so if for example you are mostly interested in the descriptions of the keywords, or the VDU codes, or the 'star' commands, you could refer to the offline versions of the BB4W manual even when using BBCSDL. But you would have to be careful not to get confused if straying into the sections which are different (e.g. libraries).

[Richard Russell]

You refer to CHM and PDF versions of the BBC BASIC SDL2 Help Manual. All I can find is the manual produced online.

I've created a CHM version of the BBCSDL manual which you can download from here. Unfortunately it suffers from some internal linking issues and you may get stuck trying to navigate from one topic to another. In particular don't click on the CONTENTS link at the bottom of the pages.

Of course the CHM file can only straightforwardly be used in Windows, the HTML Help Viewer is a built-in feature. There are apparently some third-party CHM viewers for other platforms, such as CHM Viewer Star for MacOS and xCHM for Linux, but I have no experience of these (CHM Viewer Star is said to have a convert-to-PDF feature which would be very useful if it works).

I'd be interested to learn of people's experiences if they try these products, or any others.