NppExec Manual: CHM vs. HTML version [poll]

Vitalii Dovgan

NppExec’s Manual exists in a form of a “NppExec_Manual.chm” file for years.
To be honest, I’m still happy with the CHM format: it is a single local file which is a container for many embedded HTML-formatted files, with internal indexing that allows to search by content.
But, starting from Windows 7, Microsoft began to slowly kill the CHM format, even though it was invented by the same Microsoft.
At first, a lot of users started to see only blank pages within a CHM file because “This web content was blocked”, until one manually unblocks a given CHM file.
Then, starting from either Windows 10 or Windows 11, Microsoft went even further. They do not allow users to open CHM files by default - unless you explicitly install a package/component that works with CHM files.

Given all of that, I decided to create a poll to understand, whether it makes sense to still provide the “NppExec_Manual.chm” - or maybe it will be better to replace it with a purely HTML version that will be opened by means of a web browser.

Please share your thoughts.

PeterJones

@Vitalii-Dovgan ,

I voted “local HTML”, but my preference is actually “local HTML, which should include a link to the remote version”, so one can always find (and easily link to) the publically-available one. (I am always frustrated that when helping people with PythonScript plugin that I cannot cite a URL to a linkable copy of the PythonScript docs.)

So knowing that the online version of your docs exists is great (I don’t think I remembered that), but making sure you can easily get there from the local docs is also important (because I won’t remember that URL in a few days, let alone next year when I want to point someone to a specific part of the manual).

guy038

Hello, @vitalii-dovgan,

By choosing Your option, I meant that the @peterjones’s option , with a link to the remote version, seems the best choice !

Best Regards,

guy038

Vitalii Dovgan

Just 6 votes… Not many.

Anyway, I’m continuing to improve the HTML version of the Manual, this time with close help of Gemini.
I still don’t understand the HTML/JS/CSS things good enough, but with the trials and re-trials guided by the AI, I think I’ve already achieved such level of flexibility and complexity that rdipardo and Joseph Samuel (who originally significantly helped with bringing the Manual online) may be proud of the result :)
I seemed to achieve the same behavior between the offline (local) and online (web) version of the HTML Manual today, so you may try it.
The most important changes have been made around the “Search Topics” logic:

Now the search results (left frame) and the document content (right frame) both listen to the ‘mouseenter’ event. Once this event happens, the corresponding frame becomes focused, allowing e.g. scrolling by the arrow keys.
While working with the search results list (such as changing the selected item via the mouse or the keyboard), the focus remains in the results list, thus allowing to navigate through different documents.
Pressing Enter or double-clicking the search results list brings the focus to the document content (right frame).
The search results list can be closed by Esc.
The http and https links in the documents are blocked for the CHM version of the manual and allowed otherwise.