iHelpMSFT

[ReneMiner]

Oh it's not iDispatch- sorry...

I look and try to find out as simple things as in the shipped thinBasic-Example "iDispatch_Shell_Application_BrowseForFolder"
what might be a good name to try that i can find out which path the user has chosen?

iDispatch is nearly undocumented (yes there are descriptions of 5 keywords but they say 'Nothing')
I suspect there a bunch of at least 15 more keywords since i saw few of them when i assorted keywords to create thinBasic-lexer + autocomplete ifor use with synwrite-editor**.
There is a link in thinbasic-helpfile at the idispatch-topic that leads to a microsoft-site.
But its like with all the other links within thinBasic helpfile: Microsoft is either no longer maintaining the content of that site -if you are lucky- or it has deprecated and there is another topic where the link leads or maybe Microsoft decided to re-order everything to show the users how busy they are or whatever.

Anyway these keywords - documented nowhere but also visible in autocmplete - just 2 to mention now:

iTypeInfo_GetDocumentation + iTypeInfo_GetFuncDesc

I guess these could have to do with iDispatch. And they could help me to find information?
These undocumented keywords, that start with lowcase "i" as in iDispatch, would they cause iDispatch to give me information how to use it?


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If these are to explain or handle other members of the same library then i think it's more important to put such information into the help-file before anything else. Self-explanatory keywords or such that will help to detect functions names or properties should be prioritized- if time is short its better to give a usable clue than to waste time for finding a topic-related link to provide.
Its still better to write:
For more information check out https://www.google.com/search?q=Sour...ssion&ie=utf-8
than to refer to a page on a microsoft-server.

Maybe someone will create a utility that will help to maintain the thinBasic-help.
Check what topics are incomplete or have a wrong keyword - so it differs from filename of that page. It could also filter all the links out and collect them (i posted a link somewhere what utility can do it to convert more than 3000 pages of TB & TBGL within a second -itÄs Name was "HTMLasText".
It has options about handling the links too. Collect all links in a file and keep a list from what helpfile-page that link came from.
Let it go through the list using INet-module-function INET_URLDownLoad. Again run the html-to-text-conversion on the downloaded pages and have a function to find or compare text. If it does not find at least 1 matching word from the thinbasic-help-page where the link was taken from on the downloaded page then it would be a reason to check this link "humanually" and mark this link to be removed from tB-Helpfile.
For the online-help so it might serve to correct and complete the offline version:
why not allow users to place only tb-forum-links below the "See also:" which leads to a forum-section where we could collect additional informatiion or things that should get corrected within the help. But no external llinks there.
If links at all then links could be collected in a "to <tbKeyword> related-links-section". Every keyword can occupy a thread. First post could be the links-collection but also the basic information about the keyword. From approved help-pages
Dead links are a waste of time and make no good impression. some people might think: "oh they are still using since 5 years deprecated functions". Actually i don't care what those people say - but what they will tell to others about thinbasic should be positive or at least not be negative.




** don't bother, synwrite is a really nice made editor - many functions are even better made than in notepad++ - also split-ability of window in countless different windows that can display all different things, actually it could be fun to use it but it has a serious issue running stable without crashes and i think developement has been discontinued since the developer seems to have joined another big editor-projec. If it would not crash that often--- it can even handle multiple languages at the same time.
If an assembler- or oxygen-basic part within thinbasic - it can as double-quotes enclose text with keywords like "String O2Basic= "and color it different until it hits a certain mark. It would be easy to make it load additiional keywords to the core-keywords that it had by default. If Uses "Console" it would add thinBasic_console_lexer... and users instantly will see if they are using keywords from an unused module...
And its much much easier to customize than Notepad++ especially when it comes to run the scripts and display the position where an Error occured.
No more words na- it has a major bug that makes it almost useless

[Petr Schreiber]

Dear Rene,

we will have a look how to review the 5 iDispatch_* functions. Thanks for pointing out missing piece of information!

> Maybe someone will create a utility that will help to maintain the thinBasic-help.

Enabling easier way to contribute to help file is on the list with high priority, we are discussing multiple options, based on suggestions from multiple users.

The help file is designed via great, yet expensive tool now.

If you have idea for documenting keyword now, please:
- create thread in https://www.thinbasic.com/community/...-Help-Material
- it is ideal to post the proposed contents without formatting

More systematic solutions will come, thanks for understanding.

We already tried some proof-of-concepts this month, but we are not there yet.


Petr