[comp.sys.ibm.pc] Looking for Norton Guide's File Format

granoff@vaxwrk.enet.dec.com (Mark H. Granoff) (06/15/90)

I have been using (for quite some time) the Norton Guides, which I received
free bundled with another company's library of callable Turbo Pascal
routines.

Essentially, the Norton Guides (NG) is a TSR which you can pop-up any time
for instant help on the item you are pointing to, provided there's a
reference to that item in NG's currently loaded database.  In the case of
this third-party's callable routines, the help text contains calling and
parameter passing information for the particular routines.  NG is a
wonderful tool, but only works on databases someone else (up to this point)
supplies.

What I'd like to be able to do is generate these NG databases myself,
particularly where I have a bunch of home grown Units and such.  It would
be very nice to have my own documentation for my own routines on-line,
rather than having to maintain, say, a binder with printed documentation.

Does anyone know anything about the format of Norton Guides databases, and how
to generate them from, say, plain ASCII files?  If I can avoid buying one of
those file format books, that would be great.  But, if one exists and contains
this file format info, I'd buy it, if someone could point me at it.  Of course,
if someone could send me the info electronically, that would be best.

Thanks,

-Mark
(please respond directly to me at granoff@vaxwrk.enet.dec.com)

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Mark H. Granoff   |    Enterprise Integration Services/Engineering VAXworks
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