This was fun and interesting to read, and as an example of a Gift To The Community [^0] I wish it was well preserved and updated with new examples, as the ones linked are down.
Yeah, I keep thinking that CHM was the peak format for offline docs. Today we have Kiwix [0] and Dash/Zeal [1] – both amazing projects, but somehow they feel more complex, and the formats they use aren’t as ubiquitous.
The other day I crammed some awful internal docs into zeal. It was a fun time, good format -- was able to reverse engineer it without looking at the specs in an hour or so. I wanted to be able to look at those docs having to remember exactly where they were every time.
https://web.archive.org/web/20250130063217/http://www.rdrop....
This was fun and interesting to read, and as an example of a Gift To The Community [^0] I wish it was well preserved and updated with new examples, as the ones linked are down.
[^0]: http://www.rdrop.com/~half/Creations/Writings/Web.patterns/g...
Considering that this dates from 2003 and the author, Mark Irons, died over 12 years ago (http://www.zuckershack.org/mark/) I would consider this very well preserved. There are estimates that 38% of the sites that were available in 2013 are gone now (https://www.pewresearch.org/data-labs/2024/05/17/when-online...).
So, who ever keeps Marks site up & running: thank you!
Interesting concept http://www.rdrop.com/~half/Creations/Writings/Web.patterns/d...
I remember some 2010s websites offering a CHM version to download. Pretty neat for some things you might want to reference offline.
I used to think creating a CHM was peak professionalism. I'm a mini Microsoft!
Actually I'd go back to CHMs for docs. A modern reader would be good tho.
Yeah, I keep thinking that CHM was the peak format for offline docs. Today we have Kiwix [0] and Dash/Zeal [1] – both amazing projects, but somehow they feel more complex, and the formats they use aren’t as ubiquitous.
[0]: https://kiwix.org/en/
[1]: https://kapeli.com/dash for macOS, https://zealdocs.org/ for others
The other day I crammed some awful internal docs into zeal. It was a fun time, good format -- was able to reverse engineer it without looking at the specs in an hour or so. I wanted to be able to look at those docs having to remember exactly where they were every time.
Is there a term for the situation that, when there's a dozen different products competing in the same space, there may as well be none?
Choice paralysis, choice overload, analysis paralysis.
I don’t think so, but there is a number. [927]
[927]: https://xkcd.com/927/
hmmm, website isn't loading for me.
It is slow. Like geocities.
That's the "pattern".