Using Flex™ 2.0.1 Language Reference offline

sourec : here

After playing with HTML Help Workshop for some time I have managed to compile the Flex™ 2.0.1 Language Reference in CHM format (CHM files are extensively used for documentation and help files).

This is similar to Help Window we get with the Flex Builder. FlexBuilder has a limitation that it doesnt allow using help unless FlexBuilder is open. This is where such a CHM is useful. It also has got search functionality and thus serves the purpose. Here are the steps to create a CHM file:

1. Download Flex Language Reference from livedocs or alternatively take the zip from {Flex Builder installed location}/plugins/doc.zip (thanks to Sreenivas for pointing out this) and unzip it.
2. Say the docs are located on PATH/flexapi.
3. Download HTML Help Workshop from the following link and install it.
4. Open HTML Help Workshop and go to File -> New and select Project. It will start a wizard.
5. Give a name (say flex2.0.1_asdoc ), when asked for name of the project file.
6. After clicking next, select HTML files checkbox (because we already have our doc created)
7. In the next dialog box, press Add and give path of the index.html (PATH/flexapi/index.html)
8. Click Finish to finish the wizard

Press Save to save the project and compile the project and click View Compile file button on the toolbar. You will find that the file created is broken because it has not included all the files. So we need to fix this. Actually HTML Help workshop has a limitation that it doesn’t pick files specified in CSS stylesheets and javascripts. Follow these steps to fix this:

1. Close the project. And go to the project folder and open the .hhp file in any editor. You will find a [FILES] section in the file with index.html listed.
2. Just do a find to find all the class-list.html files in the PATH/flexapi/ folder and add all those class-list files (with full path) after index.html
3. Save this template.html file in the PATH/flexapi/ folder.
4. Add template.html also to the list of [FILES] in .hhp file.

Now open the project again and re-compile the project. Use the CHM created when you are offline and not using FlexBuilder.

Here is a screenshot of CHM file I got. You can also take advantage of the search functionality and here is a screenshot for this.