CHM files?

[Clifford Heath]

In Debian Linux, there's a group of "libchm" packages that
offer an API and tools to unpack Windows Compiled Help Module
files. A lot of EBooks are delivered this way, including the
Ruby Book, and it's always bugged me that I have no Linux
option for reading them (I know the Ruby book is available as
HTML, but it isn't as easy to use as the Windows help viewer).

Anyhow, I unpacked an EBook using "extract_chmLib", and found
the .hhc file which contains the table of contents. It's just
an HTML file with a set of nested <UL> lists, and each <LI>
contains an <object>. The objects have parameters for Name
and "Local", and I translated them to <a href=Local>Name</a>,
and got a working table of contents. Add a little bit of framery,
and I have a working EBook, sweet.

Ok, my question. Would anyone be interested in a Ruby or Apache
module that provides a normal HTML interface to a CHM file?
Because it looks pretty feasible, and I don't think it's been
done.

Clifford Heath.

 

[Kent Sibilev]

Ok, my question. Would anyone be interested in a Ruby or Apache
module that provides a normal HTML interface to a CHM file?
Because it looks pretty feasible, and I don't think it's been
done.

I'm not sure about debian, but ubuntu has libchm-bin package which
comes with chm_http application. It does exactly what you want and no
apache is required.

 

[Clifford Heath]

I'm not sure about debian, but ubuntu has libchm-bin package which
comes with chm_http application. It does exactly what you want and no
apache is required.

Ahh, I thought it should have been done. Debian has it too, I just
hadn't found it. Excellent start... needs a bit (ok, a lot) of work
though. Then all it needs is an Apache module for it and I'll be
laughing .

 

[Paul Battley]

In Debian Linux, there's a group of "libchm" packages that
offer an API and tools to unpack Windows Compiled Help Module
files. A lot of EBooks are delivered this way, including the
Ruby Book, and it's always bugged me that I have no Linux
option for reading them (I know the Ruby book is available as
HTML, but it isn't as easy to use as the Windows help viewer).

You could use xchm, which is very much like the Windows viewer:
http://xchm.sourceforge.net/

(Note for OS X users: xchm works on OS X, but chmox is better:
http://chmox.sourceforge.net/)

Paul.