CHM windows SDK reference

[Marladu]

 Hi, has anyone found some chm files for the windows api to integrate into lazarus to be able to take on the road?

 I found a program named packagethis that looks like it should be able to do (it tries to make chm files out of msdn) this but it crashes all the time for me. I'm thinking if I used really small subsections and then used the chm [merge] command I might be able to make it work but that's getting to be quite a bit of work I haven't had time to try yet.

 Otherwise supposedly that visual studio 6 has chm reference of the windows api but that's almost 20 years old.

 Delphi XE8 went back to chm help files but it stopped even trying to ship some windows api reference (and their chm help files arent even properly runtime merged ).

 Lastly I found a script called hxsconv that I tried to use to convert some hxs winapi reference help files to chm files but the resulting chm files are too buggy to use.

 Anyone have other ideas? I'd really like to have my lazarus help have f1 context sensitive help for a good chunk of the windows api but I'm having a hard time figuring out how.

[Graeme]

Otherwise supposedly that visual studio 6 has chm reference of the windows api but that's almost 20 years old.

Luckily Windows is pretty good at being API compatible. So old Win32 API references should still be 99% relevant (though I stopped using Windows since XP, so don't know what happened in Win 8.1+

If you have a copy of Delphi 7 lying around, it includes a win32.chm - I still use that to this day.

Delphi XE8 went back to chm help files but it stopped even trying to ship some windows api reference (and their chm help files arent even properly runtime merged ).

Oh dear, Delphi is in such a mess these days. Help that hasn't worked for 10+ years, and now went back to "old technology" CHM files.


Anyway, a quick google search revealed this link (and many others). I'm sure somewhere should be a packaged help download available.
  http://read.pudn.com/downloads120/ebook/510509/WIN32API.CHM

[marcov]

A few years ago, embarcadero's FTP server had a lot of CHMs.

[Marladu]

 Thanks for the replies guys.

 For the link you provided Graeme it doesn't work, and in fact I haven't been able to find through a whooooole lot of searching any chm of windows api that dates from windows xp or later. For D7 I'd have to look to see if I still have it on some of my old backup CDs but ideally I'd like to get api definitions that include windows xp at least.

 Marcov, I tried to find an ftp address that works to access embarcadero ftp server but I can't find one, you have it somewhere?

 If I can't find something already done by someone else I'll probably end up building an up to date chm suite using packagethis but from early experimenting with the tool it looks like it would take me very many hours so I probably won't have time for a few weeks. If I do it I'll make sure to post a link here for everyone's benefit.

[wp]

If you have a copy of Delphi 7 lying around, it includes a win32.chm - I still use that to this day.

Are you sure? Where is this one? I only see .hlp files which are even older than .chm.

[Graeme]

Are you sure? Where is this one? I only see .hlp files

My apologies, you are correct. The help included with Delphi 7 is in .hlp format. I just had a look, there are three Win32 API specific .hlp files. The largest one being win32.hlp (23.6MB) dated 2002. The whole MSHelp directory is 45MB in size.

[Graeme]

For the link you provided Graeme it doesn't work,

Searched for another 3 minutes and found this one. I tested and it works. It is a win32.chm which was converted from the Microsoft win32.hlp file.

https://db.tt/JTTNo1yP

And here is another one made by the same author, but with slightly better formatting for CHM.

https://db.tt/xOdDUFYP

[Marladu]

Thanks for the links graeme. I checked them out and they are useful but are built from documentation dating from before windows 2000 and are missing very important things (to me) like OpenGL. I'll use the second one for a bit but when I have time I'll try to make up to date chms with packagethis. Sadly that tool has some rather big issues (most internal links don't work ) so I'll need to commit a few days to upgrade it (or maybe I'll try to port it to freepascal/delphi).

 If/when I do that kind of work I'll post about it here.