Maxscript 2013 Help CHM creator

Submitted by Jonathan de Blok on Sat, 2012-04-28 02:36

Version:

1.3.0

Date Updated:

04/29/2012

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Update: Our friends at Autodesk have released an official CHM for both MXS and SDK!
Get it here: http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/item?siteID=123112&id=16707768

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With this tool you can transcode the offline HTML help into a CHM for personal use.

Remember, while these tools are freeware the resulting CHM is still a copyrighted work and you cannot distribut that without permission, so keep the CHM to yourself.

Needed:
-The offline maxscript help files: http://images.autodesk.com/adsk/files/maxscript-2013-help.zip

-For Max 2014 use these: http://images.autodesk.com/adsk/files/maxscript-2014-help.zip

-htmlhelp.exe, download here: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=21138

Howto:

1) Download offline help and unpack zip somewhere

2) Unpak chm_ftw.zip files to help's root folder (so chm_ftw.exe and index.html are in the same folder)

3) Optionally drop override.css in the '/styles' folder the get the original look and feel of the last CHM. (Thx to Johan Boekhoven for supplying the CSS)

4) **!! Delete or rename the /scripts folder !!** important

5) Run chm_ftw.exe (can take a while), now 2 files new are created ( a .hhc and a .hhk file)

6) Open '__maxscripthelp_project.hhp' in microsoft's HTLMworkshop (don't drag&drop, use the file menu)

7) Click on the content and index tabs, if asked for a file point to the files created earlier. (if you see content it worked)

8) Compile & Enjoy*

(Works on Max's main help file as well thx to SpaceFrog's handy work, see http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/scripts/maxscript-2013-help-chm-creato...

Additional Info:

Checked and works with MaxScript 2014 docs as well

Update 1.3.0

Better anchoring routine to account for discrepancies on the originals files.
Now comes with a very clean and optimized index, the original had lots of doubles and those are now automatically being filtered out.

Small example, these are 3 original entries:

1) Abs()
2) abs() - Numbers
3) abs() - Time values

Nr1 points to the same place as nr2 so nr1 is removed and the index looks like this:

1) abs() - Numbers
2) abs() - Time values

Update 1.2.1

Fixed anchoring bug in subtitles
Optimization

Update 1.2.0

CSS fixes
Added subtitles to index for better usability The [1], [2], [3] etc are replaced by titles so instead of

Controller [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10], [11], [12], [13], [14], [15], [16], [17], [18], [19], [20], [21], [22], [23], [24], [25], [26], [27], [28], [29], [30], [31], [32], [33], [34], [35], [36], [37], [38], [39], [40], [41], [42]

You get

Controller
Controller - Animation Controller
Controller - Audio Controllers
Controller - Attachment : PositionController
etc...

Update 1.1.0:

Added subtitles in index Update to 1.1.0 Thx to Ruramuq for some better CHM settings: Favorites tab enabled
Advanced search
Fixed the error on start page
Some small tweaks.