Re: [Freedos-user] AMB, Ancient Machine Book format and FreeDOS Help

[Mateusz Viste]

On 16/12/2020 12:39, C. Masloch wrote:
Very nice! I'd guess it may be the path of least resistance to add an 
AMB output format to the existing Halibut compiler.


That would be awesome, yes -- but I looked at the source code and it 
wasn't looking like a 5-minutes job, so I decided to go for the poor 
man's solution of improving your txt version with AMB tags.


I have added the NASM book to the AMB "library", below (I hope you don't 
mind):

http://amb.osdn.io/library.php


By the way, I am not a Christian. The C. does not stand for that.


Oh, I'm sorry - I was certain I had seen a Christian Masloch on the list 
at some point, but surely I am confusing with someone else then.


Mateusz


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Re: [Freedos-user] AMB, Ancient Machine Book format and FreeDOS Help

[C. Masloch]

On at 2020-12-14 07:36 +0100, Mateusz Viste wrote:

Hi Christian,

Your docs seem very interesting! I didn't know about them. Having them 
available as AMB books would definitely be very cool.
I am not very fond of HTML as a source-to-be-processed data, but the halibut 
thing appears very promising. I will see how hard it would be to create a 
halibut2amb converter.

Mateusz



Very nice! I'd guess it may be the path of least resistance to add an 
AMB output format to the existing Halibut compiler. So you don't have to 
re-invent the Halibut input handling.


By the way, I am not a Christian. The C. does not stand for that.

Regards,
ecm


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Re: [Freedos-user] AMB, Ancient Machine Book format and FreeDOS Help

[Mateusz Viste]

On December 15, 2020 6:45:46 PM GMT+01:00, ZB  wrote:
>There's no need to wait for "8086 code" - if you're interested I can
>show
>you example of TCL/Tk solution. Of course similar way it'll work in DOS

Doing things on modern platforms with lots of RAM and 32bit ints is easy. Doing 
the same with a 8086, fitting in kilobytes of RAM and providing a reasonably 
fast UI is entirely another story.

> (as Lynx does with HTML, for example).

Lynx is cool, but it is neither lightweight nor 8086 compatible.

>Actually that lightweight application could recognize \ as well as
>it presently recognizes "%h" - and then it could show that heading,
>say,
>centered and using "bold" attribute, right?

And the html should be preformatted for 80-columns displays. And it would have 
to be encoded in a code page that browsers do not understand. And the reader 
would need to handle a variety of html thingies likeetc.

>All the other HTML tags can be simply ignored (not interpreted and of
>course
>not displayed), so help files could remain HTML, maybe just being
>prepared
>most simplistic way - while still being HTML, therefore
>any-browser-compatible.

You just described how the FreeDOS help.exe works.

Mateusz


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Re: [Freedos-user] AMB, Ancient Machine Book format and FreeDOS Help

[ZB]

On Tue, Dec 15, 2020 at 02:37:49PM +0100, Mateusz Viste wrote:

> > Guys, I have no issues with AMB neither any other new invention - but...
> > maybe simpler solution would be to copy solution offered by Tk's "text
> > widget"? The "side advantage" would be ability to browse the texts prepared
> > such way under every OS where Tk toolkit is available.
> 
> That may be a good idea. Would you mind preparing an 8086-compatible
> prototype so we can compare both options side by side? It's always nice to
> have choice.
> 
> > ...which will become "hyperlink", that after being clicked will move you
> > to a later section of the same file having the header like this:
> > 
> >   5. Settings / preferences
> > 
> >  means "link"
> >  means "bold>
> > 
> > This is already done and easy to copy
> 
> Indeed easy. I'm very interested to see what you can come up with.

There's no need to wait for "8086 code" - if you're interested I can show
you example of TCL/Tk solution. Of course similar way it'll work in DOS
text mode (as Lynx does with HTML, for example).

> On a semi-related note, following "DosWorld's" questions I have added a
> rationale section in the AMB format spec file, so the thought process behind
> each element of the format is clearer. I have also converted the format spec
> itself to an AMB book (a txt version is available as well). The AMB version
> can be read online here:
> 
> http://amb.osdn.io/phpamb.php?fname=archiwum/format-20201215.amb

On a second thought, however - actually why the need to create another
non-standard format? You wrote:

#v+
 AMB [..] is a simple hyperlink format that makes it possible to create
 "books" that are easy to read even on very limited hardware.

 The "books" can be viewed with a tool named AMB. It is only a few kilobytes
 big and requires about 80K of available RAM.
#v-

I can see on the page:
 http://amb.osdn.io/phpamb.php?fname=archiwum/format-20201215.amb=ama.ama
that there's mainly a difference in tags, say "%h" instead of "\"
(I hope "escaped" triangle braces will show up).

Actually that lightweight application could recognize \ as well as
it presently recognizes "%h" - and then it could show that heading, say,
centered and using "bold" attribute, right?

Sticking to standards has its advantages - like, for example, that these
help files may be browsed on any PC using any HTML browser, not just
specialized tool.

So IMHO the key isn't in new format, but in that lightweight application
rather. It doesn't have to support full specification of HTML5 - it could,
for instance, recognize just a few HTML tags to remain lightweight:

- bold
- underline
- link
- quote
- code

Can it be any less "lightweight" by using a few standard HTML tags, ignoring
all the rest?

All the other HTML tags can be simply ignored (not interpreted and of course
not displayed), so help files could remain HTML, maybe just being prepared
most simplistic way - while still being HTML, therefore any-browser-compatible.

Maybe I'm wrong but I believe not the new format is "the key"
-- 
regards,
Zbigniew


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Re: [Freedos-user] AMB, Ancient Machine Book format and FreeDOS Help

[Mateusz Viste]

On 14/12/2020 19:08, ZB wrote:

Guys, I have no issues with AMB neither any other new invention - but...
maybe simpler solution would be to copy solution offered by Tk's "text
widget"? The "side advantage" would be ability to browse the texts prepared
such way under every OS where Tk toolkit is available.


That may be a good idea. Would you mind preparing an 8086-compatible 
prototype so we can compare both options side by side? It's always nice 
to have choice.



...which will become "hyperlink", that after being clicked will move you
to a later section of the same file having the header like this:

  5. Settings / preferences

 means "link"
 means "bold>

This is already done and easy to copy


Indeed easy. I'm very interested to see what you can come up with.

On a semi-related note, following "DosWorld's" questions I have added a 
rationale section in the AMB format spec file, so the thought process 
behind each element of the format is clearer. I have also converted the 
format spec itself to an AMB book (a txt version is available as well). 
The AMB version can be read online here:


http://amb.osdn.io/phpamb.php?fname=archiwum/format-20201215.amb

Mateusz


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Re: [Freedos-user] AMB, Ancient Machine Book format and FreeDOS Help

[DosWorld via Freedos-user]

More points:

1. "It needs to be noted that words of less than 2 characters and more than 
17characters cannot be indexed"

Forth-language (one more dinosaur) have many 1-char commands (like @ ! , . + - 
/ [ ] : ; etc ). So, need expect users, who want find @ into 1-char article 
name.

https://forth-standard.org/standard/core/Fetch

2. May be need add recommendation for table markups and highlighting. "Viewer" 
can do (or don't do) - table borders highlighting. But will be good have a hint 
- what kind of markup expect. Imho, DOS-way is use for table-drawing chars like 
0xB3. But this (DOS) codepage could not be available on non-DOS devices, so may 
be better use "-" (minus) and "i" (in uppers-case) ? or something like it.

Here is example table highlighting into text file:
https://github.com/DosWorld/dwed/raw/main/DWED-TXT.PNG

-- 
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https://github.com/DosWorld/


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Re: [Freedos-user] AMB, Ancient Machine Book format and FreeDOS Help

[ZB]

Guys, I have no issues with AMB neither any other new invention - but...
maybe simpler solution would be to copy solution offered by Tk's "text
widget"? The "side advantage" would be ability to browse the texts prepared
such way under every OS where Tk toolkit is available.

Some more details:

 https://wiki.tcl-lang.org/page/Text+Widget+Example
 https://www.python-course.eu/tkinter_text_widget.php
 https://www.perlmonks.org/?node_id=667638

This can be done very easily, for example, in simplest case:

Somewhere in supposed text file you can insert something like this:

 5. Settings / preferences

...which will become "hyperlink", that after being clicked will move you
to a later section of the same file having the header like this:

 5. Settings / preferences

 means "link"
 means "bold>

This is already done and easy to copy
-- 
regards,
Zbigniew


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Re: [Freedos-user] AMB, Ancient Machine Book format and FreeDOS Help

[DosWorld via Freedos-user]

Hello, Mateusz!


I am wrote to you email with a few fords about AMB.
I don't read this mail-list, so don't see your announces.
I have few offers for AMB extension.
I am software developer, author of text editor for DOS, which can work as 
lightweight IDE. (https://github.com/DosWorld/dwed)




For my project, i am use CP/M help format, but have no hyperlinks and that is a 
small problem. Also, i am need a opensource format for user's help files (i 
want implement feature - "user can use own help-files" into my text editor, for 
example it could be help about C or Pascal language). So, AMB looks very good 
alternatives for me.





I have few points to AMB format extension:





1. Text line width. I think, 78 chars limit is not so good. I am offer make 
limit to 255 chars - including markup. 255 chars limit very often meet in 
programming languages like Pascal and Basic.

Yes, many old hardware have standard 80 chars screen (CP/M, MS-DOS), but we 
have many old devices with another line width:




Printers - 65 chars,


Commodore C64, MSX - 40 chars.


ZX Spectum - ??


So, IMHO, let "viewer" do what he can with available native screen.




2. I want have more highlighting into text. Header and normal text is not 
enough for me - i want have highlighting for source code, command line usage 
examples, hot-keys etc. I am offer extends format into one of two (alternative) 
way:





a) via including ANSI-terminal sequences (ESC+something). Not sure is it best 
way - because emulation is not a piece of cake.





b) via additional styles like %0 %1 ... %9. You can also add file 'styles' with 
key-values like:



%5f = 0 (means foreground color 0 for style %5)


%5b = 7 (means background color 7 for style %5)



If one of two colors is not specified - used predefined color (predefined by 
"viewer").


Also will be good, if it work as %h = %0 and %t = %1 etc

But, need to remember - "viewer" can render screen via ANSI-sequences (in some 
cases).

Here is example, what kind of hell i have in my current CP/M help-file:

https://github.com/DosWorld/dwed/raw/main/DWED-HLP.PNG

Thank you!

-- 
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https://github.com/DosWorld/


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Re: [Freedos-user] AMB, Ancient Machine Book format and FreeDOS Help

[Mateusz Viste]

After some quick investigations, I found that the text version of insref 
is almost AMB-ready, it only needed to have a TOC generated.
I wrote a script that splits insref into multiple "chapters" using the 
Linux csplit command and then auto-generated a TOC from there. It is not 
perfect, because the files sometimes have mentions "See chapter xyz for 
abc", and these are not linkified, but it's as good as I can get it to 
be without spending too much time on it.


This is how it looks like:
http://mateusz.viste.fr/tmp/amb/phpamb.php?fname=insref.amb

The AMB file itself can be downloaded here:
http://mateusz.viste.fr/tmp/amb/insref.amb

And the script I created for the occasion is here:
https://sourceforge.net/p/ambook/code/HEAD/tree/nasmref2amb/convert.sh

Mateusz




On 14/12/2020 07:36, Mateusz Viste wrote:

Hi Christian,

Your docs seem very interesting! I didn't know about them. Having them 
available as AMB books would definitely be very cool.
I am not very fond of HTML as a source-to-be-processed data, but the halibut 
thing appears very promising. I will see how hard it would be to create a 
halibut2amb converter.

Mateusz




On December 13, 2020 9:27:06 PM GMT+01:00, "C. Masloch"  
wrote:

On at 2020-12-13 09:15 +0100, Mateusz Viste wrote:

I'd love to have the FreeDOS books in there, too.
https://www.freedos.org/books/
I don't think I have the free time to convert them, but if I sent

you

the ODT files, could you convert


Sure, if the books are terminal-friendly (ie. no illustrations or
illustrations can be removed easily).


Hi,

I wonder whether you could convert my documentation to AMB format too?
Most of it is found at [1] -- each HTML file contains a link to the
corresponding hg repository near the end, which has the source. Such as

[2].The source format is that accepted by the Halibut documentation
preparation system [3]. Perhaps you can convert from either the HTML
output or the Halibut sources to AMB?

Regards,
ecm

[1]: https://ulukai.org/ecm/doc/
[2]: https://hg.ulukai.org/ecm/insref/
[3]: https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/halibut/


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Re: [Freedos-user] AMB, Ancient Machine Book format and FreeDOS Help

[Mateusz Viste]

Hi Christian,

Your docs seem very interesting! I didn't know about them. Having them 
available as AMB books would definitely be very cool.
I am not very fond of HTML as a source-to-be-processed data, but the halibut 
thing appears very promising. I will see how hard it would be to create a 
halibut2amb converter.

Mateusz




On December 13, 2020 9:27:06 PM GMT+01:00, "C. Masloch"  
wrote:
>On at 2020-12-13 09:15 +0100, Mateusz Viste wrote:
>>> I'd love to have the FreeDOS books in there, too. 
>>> https://www.freedos.org/books/
>>> I don't think I have the free time to convert them, but if I sent
>you 
>>> the ODT files, could you convert
>> 
>> Sure, if the books are terminal-friendly (ie. no illustrations or 
>> illustrations can be removed easily).
>
>Hi,
>
>I wonder whether you could convert my documentation to AMB format too? 
>Most of it is found at [1] -- each HTML file contains a link to the 
>corresponding hg repository near the end, which has the source. Such as
>
>[2].The source format is that accepted by the Halibut documentation 
>preparation system [3]. Perhaps you can convert from either the HTML 
>output or the Halibut sources to AMB?
>
>Regards,
>ecm
>
>[1]: https://ulukai.org/ecm/doc/
>[2]: https://hg.ulukai.org/ecm/insref/
>[3]: https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/halibut/
>
>
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Re: [Freedos-user] AMB, Ancient Machine Book format and FreeDOS Help

[C. Masloch]

On at 2020-12-13 09:15 +0100, Mateusz Viste wrote:
I'd love to have the FreeDOS books in there, too. 
https://www.freedos.org/books/
I don't think I have the free time to convert them, but if I sent you 
the ODT files, could you convert


Sure, if the books are terminal-friendly (ie. no illustrations or 
illustrations can be removed easily).


Hi,

I wonder whether you could convert my documentation to AMB format too? 
Most of it is found at [1] -- each HTML file contains a link to the 
corresponding hg repository near the end, which has the source. Such as 
[2].The source format is that accepted by the Halibut documentation 
preparation system [3]. Perhaps you can convert from either the HTML 
output or the Halibut sources to AMB?


Regards,
ecm

[1]: https://ulukai.org/ecm/doc/
[2]: https://hg.ulukai.org/ecm/insref/
[3]: https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/halibut/


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Re: [Freedos-user] AMB, Ancient Machine Book format and FreeDOS Help

[Mateusz Viste]

On 13/12/2020 02:11, Jim Hall wrote:
This makes me wonder if we could 
adapt this to become a new version of the FreeDOS Help system.


No adaptation required I think. This is specifically one of the use 
cases I had in mind when developing AMB - as a simpler, lighter and more 
generic replacement of the FreeDOS htmlhelp.


thinking maybe we could create an alias or "shortcut" COM program that 
launches AMB to read the FreeDOS Help (with the correct language file).


I guess a simple BAT file would be enough.

IF EXIST %DOSDIR%\doc\fdhelp.%LANG% GOTO LOCALLANG
IF NOT EXIST %DOSDIR%\doc\fdhelp.%LANG%
:LOCALLANG
AMB %DOSDIR%\doc\fdhelp.%LANG%
GOTO GAMEOVER
:FALLBACK
IF NOT EXIST %DOSDIR%\doc\fdhelp.en GOTO OOPS
AMB %DOSDIR%\doc\fdhelp.en
GOTO GAMEOVER
:OOPS
ECHO NO HELP DATA FILE INSTALLED. RUN "FDNPKG INSTALL HELP.%LANG%"
:GAMEOVER


I'd love to have the FreeDOS books in there, too. https://www.freedos.org/books/
I don't think I have the free time to convert them, but if I sent you the ODT 
files, could you convert


Sure, if the books are terminal-friendly (ie. no illustrations or 
illustrations can be removed easily).


On 13/12/2020 02:24, Andy Stamp wrote:
I had been working on getting the existing HTMLHELP to compile in 
OpenWatcom as a pre-work step to fixing some of the existing bugs.  But 
assuming this can handle the non-english languages it may be the way to go.


I had a look at HTMLHELP as well. It is an impressive piece of software, 
but insanely complex for what it is expected to do (display some text 
with links). That is the reason why I decided to create a dedicated 
format - something as simple as possible, so writing software for it is 
easy even with severe hardware limitations.


And yes, AMB does handle non-engligh languages (see the french FDHELP on 
the AMB project's web page).


Mateusz


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Re: [Freedos-user] AMB, Ancient Machine Book format and FreeDOS Help

[Andy Stamp]

I had been working on getting the existing HTMLHELP to compile in
OpenWatcom as a pre-work step to fixing some of the existing bugs.  But
assuming this can handle the non-english languages it may be the way to go.

On Sat, Dec 12, 2020 at 8:13 PM Jim Hall  wrote:

> This is great!
>
> I tried it and enjoyed that I could read the FreeDOS Help as an AMB, with
> links to each section in the Help. This makes me wonder if we could adapt
> this to become a new version of the FreeDOS Help system. I'm thinking maybe
> we could create an alias or "shortcut" COM program that launches AMB to
> read the FreeDOS Help (with the correct language file).
>
>
>
> On Sat, Dec 5, 2020 at 11:47 AM Mateusz Viste  wrote:
>
>> Hello,
>>
>> These past few days I was working on a new hobby project. It is called
>> AMB, and it is a simple hyperlink format that makes it possible to
>> create "books" that are easy to read even on very limited hardware.
>>
>> The "books" can be viewed with a tool named AMB. It is only a few
>> kilobytes big and requires about 80K of available RAM.
>>
>> As a demo, I converted the FreeDOS help today into an AMB book. This is
>> something that I will use as the help tool in the Svarog386 FreeDOS
>> distribution, but perhaps it could be an interesting alternative for
>> vanilla FreeDOS as well. The AMB reader, as well as the format
>> specification and the converted FreeDOS help file can all be downloaded
>> on the project's home page:
>>
>>http://ambook.sourceforge.net
>>
>> It is still a very much work-in-progress project, but perfectly
>> functional already. I will certainly add a few features during incoming
>> weeks (mouse support, some form of light compression, full-text search,
>> etc).
>>
>> I'd like also to compile the RBIL into an AMB book in some near future.
>>
>> Enjoy.
>>
>> Mateusz
>>
>>
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Re: [Freedos-user] AMB, Ancient Machine Book format and FreeDOS Help

[Jim Hall]

This is great!

I tried it and enjoyed that I could read the FreeDOS Help as an AMB, with
links to each section in the Help. This makes me wonder if we could adapt
this to become a new version of the FreeDOS Help system. I'm thinking maybe
we could create an alias or "shortcut" COM program that launches AMB to
read the FreeDOS Help (with the correct language file).



On Sat, Dec 5, 2020 at 11:47 AM Mateusz Viste  wrote:

> Hello,
>
> These past few days I was working on a new hobby project. It is called
> AMB, and it is a simple hyperlink format that makes it possible to
> create "books" that are easy to read even on very limited hardware.
>
> The "books" can be viewed with a tool named AMB. It is only a few
> kilobytes big and requires about 80K of available RAM.
>
> As a demo, I converted the FreeDOS help today into an AMB book. This is
> something that I will use as the help tool in the Svarog386 FreeDOS
> distribution, but perhaps it could be an interesting alternative for
> vanilla FreeDOS as well. The AMB reader, as well as the format
> specification and the converted FreeDOS help file can all be downloaded
> on the project's home page:
>
>http://ambook.sourceforge.net
>
> It is still a very much work-in-progress project, but perfectly
> functional already. I will certainly add a few features during incoming
> weeks (mouse support, some form of light compression, full-text search,
> etc).
>
> I'd like also to compile the RBIL into an AMB book in some near future.
>
> Enjoy.
>
> Mateusz
>
>
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Re: [Freedos-user] AMB, Ancient Machine Book format and FreeDOS Help

[tom ehlert]

> Don't forget ftp:, mailto:, gopher:, telnet:, news:, file:, ...
> ()
> What about scheme-less URLs, e.g.,  or ?

not THAT complicated.

www. --> http://www.
ftp. --> ftp://ftp

blabla@ --> mailto:blabla


file: is local anyway, not showing up on global pages. shouldn't be a
problem.

gopher: stone age internet URI being a problem for really modern book
format for stone age computers. that's really going to be a problem.


Tom




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Re: [Freedos-user] AMB, Ancient Machine Book format and FreeDOS Help

[Robert Riebisch]

Hi Mateusz,

> On 08/12/2020 22:44, Robert Riebisch wrote:
>> We could probably only catch those by starting to wrap all URLs in <> at
>> the document source level manually.
> 
> Yes, that would be a very good compromise.

Not my own idea: 

"Using <> angle brackets around each URI is especially recommended as a
delimiting style for a reference that contains embedded whitespace."

>> But there may be side effects, when <> is used for other stuff too.
> 
> The linkification engine would not look at the <> alone - it would 
> rather try matching "". This would be much better than the 

Don't forget ftp:, mailto:, gopher:, telnet:, news:, file:, ...
()
What about scheme-less URLs, e.g.,  or ?

> current situation, and I do not think there would be any significant 
> side effects. But, in any case, this would require many corrections in 
> the help files.

And nobody wants to do the work...

We are not that many, but still *many*. It could be doable.

Cheers,
Robert
-- 
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 Home page: https://www.bttr-software.de/
DOS ain't dead: https://www.bttr-software.de/forum/


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Re: [Freedos-user] AMB, Ancient Machine Book format and FreeDOS Help

[Mateusz Viste]

On 08/12/2020 22:44, Robert Riebisch wrote:

We could probably only catch those by starting to wrap all URLs in <> at
the document source level manually.


Yes, that would be a very good compromise.


But there may be side effects, when <> is used for other stuff too.


The linkification engine would not look at the <> alone - it would 
rather try matching "". This would be much better than the 
current situation, and I do not think there would be any significant 
side effects. But, in any case, this would require many corrections in 
the help files.


Mateusz


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Re: [Freedos-user] AMB, Ancient Machine Book format and FreeDOS Help

[Robert Riebisch]

Hi Mateusz,

>> 1) Clickable web links, please? E.g., http://www.trumpet.com.au/ at
>> .
>> 2) A back to home function by clicking on "FreeDOS help system (hhstndrd
>> 1.0.8 en)".
>> 3) A search function.
> 
> All very good ideas, but...
> 
> 1) I implemented an experimental linkification of URLs, but the result 
> is not really satisfactory. Problem is that URLs are sometimes 
> multi-line or contain weird characters (like ":") or are followed by 
> unpredictable content. I think I will remove this feature and instead

Okay. I understand your problem.

We could probably only catch those by starting to wrap all URLs in <> at
the document source level manually.

  (*06) http://ftp.gnome.org/mirror/archive/ftp.sunet.se/pub/
simtelnet/trumpet/tcp-abi/

  (*06) 

But there may be side effects, when <> is used for other stuff too.

> add a provision in the language for content creators to be able to 
> define external URLs, so the thing would behave in a predictable way.

> 2) easy and certainly good to have - added.

Thanks! :-)

> 3) definitely useful, but non-trivial to implement in an efficient way. 
> Full text search is something I plan to add to the DOS client anyway, so 
> I might reuse the same mechanism in the web UI for consistency. But as 
> said - non-trivial, planned "in the future".

Then I'll come back later on this. ;-)

Cheers,
Robert
-- 
  +++ BTTR Software +++
 Home page: https://www.bttr-software.de/
DOS ain't dead: https://www.bttr-software.de/forum/


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Re: [Freedos-user] AMB, Ancient Machine Book format and FreeDOS Help

[Mateusz Viste]

On 07/12/2020 19:42, Robert Riebisch wrote:

Can we have:
1) Clickable web links, please? E.g., http://www.trumpet.com.au/ at
.
2) A back to home function by clicking on "FreeDOS help system (hhstndrd
1.0.8 en)".
3) A search function.


All very good ideas, but...

1) I implemented an experimental linkification of URLs, but the result 
is not really satisfactory. Problem is that URLs are sometimes 
multi-line or contain weird characters (like ":") or are followed by 
unpredictable content. I think I will remove this feature and instead 
add a provision in the language for content creators to be able to 
define external URLs, so the thing would behave in a predictable way.


2) easy and certainly good to have - added.

3) definitely useful, but non-trivial to implement in an efficient way. 
Full text search is something I plan to add to the DOS client anyway, so 
I might reuse the same mechanism in the web UI for consistency. But as 
said - non-trivial, planned "in the future".


Mateusz


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Re: [Freedos-user] AMB, Ancient Machine Book format and FreeDOS Help

[Mercury Thirteen via Freedos-user]

I have a feeling someone left the group up on a mobile device while in a 
pocket... lol

Sent with [ProtonMail](https://protonmail.com) Secure Email.

‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐
On Monday, December 7, 2020 12:52 PM, Jim Hall  wrote:

> This person has been banned for spamming the group.
>
> On Mon, Dec 7, 2020 at 11:36 AM Kai Ketelhut  wrote:
>
>> Ml
>>
>> --
>> Lic. Kai Olaf K e t e l h u t sic
>>
>> Sent from my Android phone with GMX Mail. Please excuse my brevity.
>> On 07/12/2020, 18:34 Kai Ketelhut  wrote:
>>
>>> Stanca
>>>
>>> --
>>> Lic. Kai Olaf K e t e l h u t sic
>>>
>>> Sent from my Android phone with GMX Mail. Please excuse my brevity.
>>> On 07/12/2020, 18:33 Kai Ketelhut  wrote:
>>>
 [Freedos-user]
 [/Freedos-user]

 --
 Lic. Kai Olaf K e t e l h u t sic

 Sent from my Android phone with GMX Mail. Please excuse my brevity.
 On 07/12/2020, 18:30 Kai Ketelhut  wrote:

> ;
>
> --
> Lic. Kai Olaf K e t e l h u t sic
>
> Sent from my Android phone with GMX Mail. Please excuse my brevity.
> On 07/12/2020, 18:18 Eric Auer  wrote:
>
>> Kai,
>>
>>> ML
>>
>> That does not make any sense.
>>
>>> Lic. Kai Olaf K e t e l h u t sic
>>>
>>> Sent from my Android phone with GMX Mail. Please excuse my brevity.
>>
>> This is not brevity, this is plain spam. Even if this mailinglist
>> was a chat room, all messages so far have been unintelligible:
>>
>>> 00=
>>>
>>> Sound
>>
>>> 00=
>>
>>> .
>>
>>> ty_ty
>>>
>>> by ty::ty with EE2 google glass for ml by windows 7 by 5 14 floppy by 
>>> MIL-STD-810 in apendix of dos 1.0
>>
>> None of those emails has made any sense yet.
>>
>> Please move your fingers far enough to form actual words
>> and sentences and mail THOSE if you want to say something.
>>
>> Eric
>>
>> ___
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> ___ Freedos-user mailing 
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 ___ Freedos-user mailing 
 listfreedos-u...@lists.sourceforge.net 
 https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
>>>
>>> ___ Freedos-user mailing 
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Re: [Freedos-user] AMB, Ancient Machine Book format and FreeDOS Help

[Jerome Shidel]

Hi,

> On Dec 7, 2020, at 12:10 PM, Mateusz Viste  wrote:
> 
> Update: this evening I created an AMB reader for PHP. This allows one to host 
> AMB books on a web server and read them with a browser, the conversion being 
> performed on the fly.
> 
> The FreeDOS help that I have earlier converted to AMB can now be read 
> on-line. Here's how it looks like:
> http://ambook.sourceforge.net/samples/phpamb.php?fname=fdhelp.amb
> 
> A link to the above URL is also present on the main page of the AMB project 
> now (at http://ambook.sourceforge.net/ ).
> 
> Mateusz
> 
> 

Looks great.





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Re: [Freedos-user] AMB, Ancient Machine Book format and FreeDOS Help

[Robert Riebisch]

Hi Mateusz,

> Update: this evening I created an AMB reader for PHP. This allows one to 
> host AMB books on a web server and read them with a browser, the 
> conversion being performed on the fly.
> 
> The FreeDOS help that I have earlier converted to AMB can now be read 
> on-line. Here's how it looks like:
> http://ambook.sourceforge.net/samples/phpamb.php?fname=fdhelp.amb

I like it very much! :-)

Can we have:
1) Clickable web links, please? E.g., http://www.trumpet.com.au/ at
.
2) A back to home function by clicking on "FreeDOS help system (hhstndrd
1.0.8 en)".
3) A search function.

Cheers,
Robert
-- 
  +++ BTTR Software +++
 Home page: https://www.bttr-software.de/
DOS ain't dead: https://www.bttr-software.de/forum/


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Re: [Freedos-user] AMB, Ancient Machine Book format and FreeDOS Help

[Jim Hall]

This person has been banned for spamming the group.

On Mon, Dec 7, 2020 at 11:36 AM Kai Ketelhut  wrote:

> Ml
>
> --
> Lic. Kai Olaf K e t e l h u t sic
>
> Sent from my Android phone with GMX Mail. Please excuse my brevity.
> On 07/12/2020, 18:34 Kai Ketelhut  wrote:
>
>> Stanca
>>
>> --
>> Lic. Kai Olaf K e t e l h u t sic
>>
>> Sent from my Android phone with GMX Mail. Please excuse my brevity.
>> On 07/12/2020, 18:33 Kai Ketelhut  wrote:
>>>
>>> [Freedos-user]
>>> [/Freedos-user]
>>>
>>> --
>>> Lic. Kai Olaf K e t e l h u t sic
>>>
>>> Sent from my Android phone with GMX Mail. Please excuse my brevity.
>>> On 07/12/2020, 18:30 Kai Ketelhut  wrote:

 ;

 --
 Lic. Kai Olaf K e t e l h u t sic

 Sent from my Android phone with GMX Mail. Please excuse my brevity.
 On 07/12/2020, 18:18 Eric Auer  wrote:
>
>
> Kai,
>
> > ML
>
> That does not make any sense.
>
> > Lic. Kai Olaf K e t e l h u t sic
> >
> > Sent from my Android phone with GMX Mail. Please excuse my brevity.
>
> This is not brevity, this is plain spam. Even if this mailinglist
> was a chat room, all messages so far have been unintelligible:
>
> > 00=
> >
> > Sound
>
> > 00=
>
> > .
>
> > ty_ty
> >
> > by ty::ty with EE2 google glass for ml by windows 7 by 5 14 floppy
> by MIL-STD-810 in apendix of dos 1.0
>
> None of those emails has made any sense yet.
>
> Please move your fingers far enough to form actual words
> and sentences and mail THOSE if you want to say something.
>
> Eric
>
>
>
> ___
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 ___ Freedos-user mailing
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 https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
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>>> ___ Freedos-user mailing
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Re: [Freedos-user] AMB, Ancient Machine Book format and FreeDOS Help

[Mateusz Viste]

Update: this evening I created an AMB reader for PHP. This allows one to 
host AMB books on a web server and read them with a browser, the 
conversion being performed on the fly.


The FreeDOS help that I have earlier converted to AMB can now be read 
on-line. Here's how it looks like:

http://ambook.sourceforge.net/samples/phpamb.php?fname=fdhelp.amb

A link to the above URL is also present on the main page of the AMB 
project now (at http://ambook.sourceforge.net/ ).


Mateusz




On 05/12/2020 18:08, Mateusz Viste wrote:

Hello,

These past few days I was working on a new hobby project. It is called 
AMB, and it is a simple hyperlink format that makes it possible to 
create "books" that are easy to read even on very limited hardware.


The "books" can be viewed with a tool named AMB. It is only a few 
kilobytes big and requires about 80K of available RAM.


As a demo, I converted the FreeDOS help today into an AMB book. This is 
something that I will use as the help tool in the Svarog386 FreeDOS 
distribution, but perhaps it could be an interesting alternative for 
vanilla FreeDOS as well. The AMB reader, as well as the format 
specification and the converted FreeDOS help file can all be downloaded 
on the project's home page:


   http://ambook.sourceforge.net

It is still a very much work-in-progress project, but perfectly 
functional already. I will certainly add a few features during incoming 
weeks (mouse support, some form of light compression, full-text search, 
etc).


I'd like also to compile the RBIL into an AMB book in some near future.

Enjoy.

Mateusz


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