RE: [docbook-apps] Microsoft AP Help and DocBook

["Dick Hamilton" <rlhamilton@frii.com>]

Kohei,

I've been looking at the Feb 2006 Community Technology
Preview (CTP) and SDK for Vista, and while I can find
a few instances that use the maml schema, I cannot find
the schema itself.

I then did some google-ing and it looks like Microsoft
has removed the schemas and any substantive discussion
of maml from their sites.  From a couple of sources,
including an October 2005 posting from Shane McRoberts
of Microsoft, it looks like Microsoft has taken a step
back from the new help system (which they call Assistance
Platform (AP)), because customers wanted it to run on
more versions of Windows than Vista and MS needed to
re-architect it to do that.

Here's a link to Shane's posting:

http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=106405&SiteID=1

You may need to be registered w/MS to read this;  if so,
check out the following link, which covers the same ground:

http://www.help-info.de/en/Help_Info_AP_Help/ap_help.htm

FWIW, my conclusion is that it will be a while (maybe a
long while:) before we see a stable maml schema and a
system that a third party can use to deliver maml based
help.  If you can locate a copy of the older schema
(the help-info.de site has some examples that might be
useful), you might get a head start, but I have no idea
how much MS is likely to change the schema.

Hope this helps,
Dick Hamilton


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Kohei Yoshida [mailto:kyoshida@slickedit.com] 
> Sent: Monday, April 10, 2006 9:52 AM
> To: Jirka Kosek
> Cc: docbook-apps@lists.oasis-open.org
> Subject: Re: [docbook-apps] Microsoft AP Help and DocBook
> 
> 
> On Mon, 2006-04-10 at 17:32 +0200, Jirka Kosek wrote:
> 
> > I doubt that someone will write this stylesheet just for 
> fun as was the 
> > case for HTMLHelp, Java Help and Eclipse stylesheets. But with some 
> > funding I can imagine that you can convince me or some other core 
> > stylesheet developer to dig inside details of MAML schema 
> and write the 
> > code necessary to transform DocBook into MAML.
> 
> Does this mean that MAML schema is already available publicly?
> 
> I'm not against the idea of funding, but unfortunately it's 
> not entirely
> up to me to decide (I'm just an engineer).  I'll take a closer look at
> the current situation - availability of MAML schema, level of 
> difficulty
> for writing a stylesheet, etc. - and decide and propose our 
> next step to
> my superior.
> 
> Thanks,
> Kohei
> 
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