Re: [chmspec-devel] Request for exception to GPL license

[Paul Wise]

On Sun, 2010-10-10 at 05:40 -0400, Robert Pyron wrote:

> --  None of the existing readers has everything I need, as far as I know.
>     I really want multiple tabs, plus the ability to resize text. Also, TOC,
>     index, and search.

xchm sounds like it has most of that.

> --  Kchmviewer comes very close to what I'm looking for. However, the
>     Windows version is built using the Qt HTML viewer, which in some
>     ways is seriously broken. For example, various versions of 
>     Python##.chm are unreadable with kchmviewer.

You could send a patch to get it to use WebKit or Gecko.

> --  I'm also aware of Ling Li's CHM Reader add-on for Firefox
>     ( http://sourceforge.net/projects/chmreader/ ). It does not function as
>     a stand-alone viewer. I will probably borrow some code from that project.

I've added a link to that from the chmspec website:

http://chmspec.nongnu.org/

> I've been thinking about that. I really like having pieces of the spec right
> in front of me (i.e., in the source code) while I'm developing. However,
> I can write a simple preprocessor to strip these pieces for a release
> version.

You can use either a window manager with always-on-top functionality
(such as DeskPins on Windows), a tiling window manager or an IDE to keep
the spec in front of you, no need to embed it in the code.

> Ouch. I just wanted to quote the documentation in my source code.
> Now I'm definitely thinking the preprocessor idea is the way to go.

Personally I think that sounds like a painful way to work.

I'm getting the feeling that I made a huge mistake in not making chmdeco
a LGPL-licensed library implemented in C to make it easier for folks to
write GUI viewers for CHM files. Wheel reinvention gives me the
heebie-jeebies!

-- 
bye,
pabs

http://bonedaddy.net/pabs3/

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