RE: PHP website

Dear Goba, You are right that CHM has many desirable capabilities. In fact, we modeled some of our functionality after CHM. Unfortunately, CHM is not universally adopted in the Open Source community. There are no "standards" for OS referenceware. What I failed to explain is that through our Thout(tm) Reader, we have standardized OS application reference materials, regardless of their original format. With our Thout(tm) Reader, not only can search and bookmark (like CHM) but is also extensible - allowing the user to append content and add plug-ins such as video, audio, or other formats. Here's an example: If I wanted to look up regular expressions, string functions, references, loop structures, operators etc. in PERL, PHP, JAVA, JAVASCRIPT, Python, TCL etc., I would have to open up each file and look for the search term. With our Thout(tm) Reader, we enter the search term once and it searches across ALL applications (packages) for that term. When you bookmark the term, it bookmarks the material globally vs. for an individual file. Developers who have seen this product comment on their ability to save time and learn faster, and they often note the convenience of having all their references consistent so they only have to learn how to find and retrieve content one way. I think the best way for you to visualize this is by an actual trial of our beta release. It will be available in about two weeks. Our goal is not to change or replace the CHM format, but to provide another alternative that is consistent with the other OS applications into a standardized format that can be read across all platforms. I hope this information helps. I look forward to hearing back from you. Mark = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = Mark D. Carey President, OSoft Inc. 2511 South Hood Street Tacoma, WA 98402 253-284-2499 mcarey@osoft.com www.OSoft.com Mind Altering Software = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = -----Original Message----- From: Gabor Hojtsy [mailto:gabor@hojtsy.hu] Sent: Monday, December 01, 2003 8:31 AM To: mark@mysoftwarehelper.com Cc: webmaster@php.net Subject: Re: PHP website Hi Mark! > Per your request, please allow me to explain my earlier message. > > My partner, Gary Varnell, and I have been working for over a year to develop > an Open Source tool (called Thout(tm) Reader) that would establish a > standardized training platform through which Open Source referenceware, > training content and code can be delivered. We wanted to let you know that > we have nearly completed our project and let you know how it might impact > PHP developers. Do you mean you converted the PHP manual to that format, and would like to redistribute it? I don't actually see how we would be able to "work together", since you have written that you converted the PHP manual, and we have no more content to offer for such a system. Also the CHM format for one provides all the features we you have written about your format, plus it is crossplatform now with xCHM... Sure, it is not an open format, but there are open source tools to generate and read CHM files. (Please keep on using reply all so others will also be able to read our discussion, and drop in their opinions). Goba