BvG Docu and home stack in Metacard

[Wilhelm Sanke]

On Thu, 07 Jun 2007, Ken Ray wrote:

> 3) Add a substack to your main stack window called something like
> "BVGExternals" and a custom property to your main stack window to hold
> a path to the revXML external. When you launch check to see if you're
> in MC. If you are, check the custom property to see if it has a value.
> If it doesn't, ask the user to locate the revXML external and store the
> path in the custom property. If it *does* have a value, verify there's
> a file at that path. Once you're sure you have the external available,
> dynamically "set the externals" of stack "BVGExternals" to the revXML
> external path, and then bring the BVGExternals stack into use with
> "start using stack 'BVGExternals'". This will load the revXML external
> on the fly and make it available to your main stack window.


Another way to do this:

put "revxml.dll" and the Rev folder "documentation" into your MC folder 
(you can delete most of it afterwards).

Open "BvG_docu" stack and add "revxml.dll" under "components, 
externals". Do the same for substack "docsLib" after topleveling it.

Save "BvG_docu" and quit Metacard.

Start MC again and stack "BvG_docu" and follow Björnkes procedures.

Folder "documents" now contains an additional subfolder "BvG_docu". This 
is the only thing you need to run the dictionary, You can throw out 
folders and files "packaged_XML", "rev", "pdf" (unless you intend to use 
these special rev-files or the PDF user documentation), "glos.index", 
"glos.rsindex", and "dict.index".

The remaining "BvG_docu" folder thus adds 5.3 MB to your Metacard 
folder, instead of the 24.6 MB of the complete Rev documentation.--

I notice some differences of Björnke's stack to my old 
"searchdocsXML2.61" stack (which was based on the Rev help files of 
version 2.6.1), among them:

- Björnke concentrates on the dictionary, and is more or less forced to 
do this because the former "Topics" as XML-files have now been replaced 
by a PDF "User Guide".
My searchstack could search through all XML help stacks at once (if 
selected) as the former Rev documentation was less fragmented.

- Björnke searches on a one-word basis and filters out the relevant 
dictionary entries, the first one as the full article, the others with 
their listed names which can then bring up the respective entries.
My searchstack allows to search with any string length and number of 
words, and then lists all found lines (with the searchstring colored) 
along with their entry addresses, of which the first is displayed as a 
complete help entry. Thus cross-references could be detected that 
possibly were not envisaged by the authors of the help files.

I mention this only to point out different possible search approaches. I 
think Björnke's stack is a long-needed and valuable contribution 
especially for the MC community.

Best regards,

-- Wilhelm Sanke
<http://www.sanke.org/MetaMedia>