Accessing madHelp from other programs / wizards

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a-s-z
Posts: 12
Joined: Tue Sep 15, 2009 11:34 am

Accessing madHelp from other programs / wizards

Post by a-s-z »

Hello,

I want to access the madCollection help through an other ide wizard (CustomHelp). The idea is to show the help topics in a custom selector form and show the selected topic in the ide welcome page.

Is it possible to publish the required class definitions in madHelp.pas, and make a function, that translates the selected help string (e.g. IMEException (madCollection)) to the corresponding url (i.e. file:// ...)? Or even better a method, that gets caption, description, link and group for the specified help string?


Thanks,
Andre
madshi
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Post by madshi »

Hi Andre,

trying to understand this: Are you doing this for your own personal needs or do you plan to do something for all madExcept customers? I'm a bit confused right now, because doing such changes just for your personal needs sounds a bit like overkill to me right now, but maybe I'm just not fully understanding it... :D

Anyway, if you want me to just move around some code in madHelp.pas, that's no problem at all. Is that what you're asking for? To be honest, I wouldn't really want to spend hours on custom building something that only benefits one of my customers, though. So if you want me to do more than just moving some code around, there must be a something in store for all (or at least many) of my customers. Hope you understand that...
a-s-z
Posts: 12
Joined: Tue Sep 15, 2009 11:34 am

Post by a-s-z »

Hello madshi,
madshi wrote: trying to understand this: Are you doing this for your own personal needs or do you plan to do something for all madExcept customers? I'm a bit confused right now, because doing such changes just for your personal needs sounds a bit like overkill to me right now, but maybe I'm just not fully understanding it... :D
Please have a look at http://code.google.com/p/theunknownones/wiki/CustomHelp.
I want to have a solution not only for me, but for all users of madExcept and CustomHelp. Since CustomHelp is running inside the Delphi IDE too, I could use GetModuleHandle or similar to hook up a lookup function in the design time package, but a public interface declaring such method and implemented by the TMadHelpViewer class would work too.

The current signature of the function is

Code: Select all

type
  TMadHelp_TranslateHelpString = function(const HelpString: string; var Caption,Description,Link,Group: string): Boolean;
Which solution sounds better to you?
madshi wrote: Anyway, if you want me to just move around some code in madHelp.pas, that's no problem at all. Is that what you're asking for? To be honest, I wouldn't really want to spend hours on custom building something that only benefits one of my customers, though. So if you want me to do more than just moving some code around, there must be a something in store for all (or at least many) of my customers. Hope you understand that...
Sure, I do understand this. If I wanted a solution only for me, I would have used the unit directly, but as I told I want to use it in an open source ide expert, so every customer could benefit.

Regards,
Andre
madshi
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Post by madshi »

Ok, sounds good to me!

Would you be willing to simply do the changes you need to madHelp.pas and send the file back to me? I'd then simply use your modified file. That would be great cause it wouldn't cost me any time... :D
a-s-z
Posts: 12
Joined: Tue Sep 15, 2009 11:34 am

Post by a-s-z »

Hi,
madshi wrote:Ok, sounds good to me!
Would you be willing to simply do the changes you need to madHelp.pas and send the file back to me? I'd then simply use your modified file. That would be great cause it wouldn't cost me any time... :D
OK, I will do my best;)

Please be patient until next week, since I am busy on the weekend.


Regards,
Andre
madshi
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Post by madshi »

Great! I'm not in a hurry. Just let me know when you're done. Thanks!
a-s-z
Posts: 12
Joined: Tue Sep 15, 2009 11:34 am

Post by a-s-z »

Hi madshi,
madshi wrote:Great! I'm not in a hurry. Just let me know when you're done. Thanks!
I have sent the changes to you by email.
a-s-z
Posts: 12
Joined: Tue Sep 15, 2009 11:34 am

Post by a-s-z »

Hi madshi,
madshi wrote:Great! I'm not in a hurry. Just let me know when you're done. Thanks!
When will you release next version, supporting the interface for CustomHelp?
madshi
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Post by madshi »

Soon. The latest beta should already contain it:

http://madshi.net/madCollectionBeta.exe
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