treating chm files as files/folders

[dethrophes]

Hi,
really like the new BC3 lots of annoyances have been fixed.

However a couple of new ones. Main pain at the moment is CHM files, BC3 treats theses as zip files and shows me an expanded folder structure. howevery I just want to treat them as a file and use a file converter to generate a txt file with the content. I however seem incapable of achiving this goal. Any and all help is appreciated.

[Zoë]

There is a "Folder Views" page in the Options dialog with all of the archive associations. Just select "Compiled HTML Help" from the list and clear the mask for it. You'll need to restart BC for it to take effect.

[dethrophes]

Thanks a million

Thanks a million,your a life saver.

As my first question met with so much success,
Another couple of question I have are,

Is it possible to view html files in a kinda browser view? I currently use an external lister but I loose a lot of information like that.

is it possible to do a more complicated filetype recognition, I luckily have both txt files and binary roms with the same file ending. I currently use an external autotyper than handels it but its not pretty, as I can't use the hex compare then.

In grammer it doesn't seem to be possible to use RegExp in delimited. I.E.
Start delim="comment\s+(.)"
End Delim="$1"
Mainly needed for masm assembler block comments.

[Zoë]

Is it possible to view html files in a kinda browser view? I currently use an external lister but I loose a lot of information like that.

There's the "Open with Web Browser" command in the file viewer's "File" menu. It's only available for certain file types, which you can change in the Options dialog. That's all we have right now though. Are you thinking something where it just calls up a side-by-side display of two HTML files, or something else?

is it possible to do a more complicated filetype recognition, I luckily have both txt files and binary roms with the same file ending. I currently use an external autotyper than handels it but its not pretty, as I can't use the hex compare then.

Not currently, but we can consider that for the future. If a file doesn't match any of the extensions and makes it to the bottom of the list we do decide whether to open the text compare or hex compare automatically now. If you wanted to rely on that you could define your file formats but leave them unchecked so they aren't used, and then pick them from the file format dropdown on the toolbar.

I don't know if it will help, but the masks don't have to be just extensions. You could have "abc*.bin" for example, or even include paths, like "textdumps\*.bin".

In grammer it doesn't seem to be possible to use RegExp in delimited. I.E.
Start delim="comment\s+(.)"
End Delim="$1"
Mainly needed for masm assembler block comments.

Both start and stop delimiters are distinct regular expressions. We don't support back references right now.

[dethrophes]

There's the "Open with Web Browser" command in the file viewer's "File" menu. It's only available for certain file types, which you can change in the Options dialog. That's all we have right now though. Are you thinking something where it just calls up a side-by-side display of two HTML files, or something else?

yes your correct I was thinking of side by side compare of html files. Something a bit more than plain text. I guess like what is currently supported for PDFs, but if possible with more formatting support. I.E. tables, frames etc.
1. for comparing relase notes
2. for listers that support formated output

Not currently, but we can consider that for the future. If a file doesn't match any of the extensions and makes it to the bottom of the list we do decide whether to open the text compare or hex compare automatically now. If you wanted to rely on that you could define your file formats but leave them unchecked so they aren't used, and then pick them from the file format dropdown on the toolbar.

I don't know if it will help, but the masks don't have to be just extensions. You could have "abc*.bin" for example, or even include paths, like "textdumps\*.bin".

yes I do do that as well, what would be more helpful would be regex support in filetype recognition.
or the posibilty to define an external tool to make the decission??
or even to be able to switch from file viewer to hex viewer.
or the "compare using" context option.

Both start and stop delimiters are distinct regular expressions. We don't support back references right now.

I just got my hopes up wen I saw it supported in Replacements.

[Zoë]

yes your correct I was thinking of side by side compare of html files. Something a bit more than plain text. I guess like what is currently supported for PDFs, but if possible with more formatting support. I.E. tables, frames etc.

There are any number of html-to-text converters you should be able to use for this. I don't know specific ones off the top of my head, but there's bound to be some that preserve formatting, and you could just use the external conversion support for that.

yes I do do that as well, what would be more helpful would be regex support in filetype recognition.
or the posibilty to define an external tool to make the decission??
or even to be able to switch from file viewer to hex viewer.
or the "compare using" context option.

We can consider some of these options.

"Compare Using" can be added to the Explorer menu in the Options dialog, on the "Startup" page. The file viewer also has a "Compare In New View Using" submenu in the "Session" menu that opens the current files in a different viewer type. The folder compare has the "Compare In New View Using" submenu too, in the "Actions" menu and right-click menu.

[Erik]

You could try HTML to text which is available at http://www.scootersoftware.com/v3formats.

[dethrophes]

There are any number of html-to-text converters you should be able to use for this. I don't know specific ones off the top of my head, but there's bound to be some that preserve formatting, and you could just use the external conversion support for that.

It would just be nice to include formating information, visually, I.E. not with tags. Color, size, columns etc... what I guess I really wanted was a method to give BC a syntax highlighted file with formating from an external tool. I create a lot of my own binary parsers, and would like to make the output more readable. txt files are kinda limited in that respect.

"Compare Using" can be added to the Explorer menu in the Options dialog, on the "Startup" page. The file viewer also has a "Compare In New View Using" submenu in the "Session" menu that opens the current files in a different viewer type. The folder compare has the "Compare In New View Using" submenu too, in the "Actions" menu and right-click menu.

Thank you again I somehow missed both of these.

I would like to say it has been a great experience dealing with you, I have been haveing a couple of teething problems with the switch, but you have been of imense help, so keep up the great work and thanks again.