HH.EXE can show HTML/JPEG files - html-help

Apparently, one can view HTML and JPEG files (possibly others, didn't try), with HH.EXE, i.e. Microsoft's CHM file viewer.
Try "HH somefile.html". It was tested on Windows XP and Windows 10. Is this documented anywhere?

As far as I know this is not documented public but it comes as little surprise.
HH.exe is the HTMLHelp executable and associated with *.CHM files. It's just a shell that uses the HTML Help API and is really just hosting a browser window. That is the reason why HTML, JPEG, GIF and animated GIF works. Microsoft Help MVP's always knew that but it's not really useful. Example:
PS D:\_temp> hh.exe -800 images\welcome_small_big-en.gif
HH.EXE is not single instance, if you open a CHM or another file three times using HH.EXE, then three help windows will appear.
Several client-side command line switches are available to help authors that are part of the HTML Help executable program (hh.exe) and therefore work when HTML Help Workshop is not set up.
For further Informationen see my site at HTMLHelp command-line.

Related

Latex generated pdf unreadable

Of late, I have observed that pdf generated by latex files are unreadable in certain email browsers (when previewing the attachment in Outlook) as well as the printed hard copy especially math symbols like inner products, integral etc overlap with each other making the file ugly and unreadable. Surprisingly the same file looks perfectly fine when viewed using the ShareLatex built-in pdf browser as well as the desktop version of Adobe Reader.
ShareLatex documentation suggest switching the PDF viewer from built-in to native. Upon changing to native, even the browser version had unreadable characters.
[https://www.sharelatex.com/learn/Kb/Changing_PDF_viewer]
So, I would like to know if there is better way to compile the tex file in Sharelatex so that its readable across platforms and in print.
Most of the "pdf generation from tex" related issues posted on StackOverflow point out problems with viewing images. As such the pdf files I am generating don't contain any images.
Thanks in advance !
AFAIK there's not a single build-in PDF viewer (browser, e-mail client, ...) that works well. But what you could test is if \usepackage{lmodern} makes things better ...

Open a file that is on a file server from a webpage?

I am working on an internal application. We have a website that displays all our SSRS reports for a group of work. I have been asked to see if I can link all the files (pdf, word, excel) for the group of work. These files are stored on a file server that users viewing the reports have access to. Each group has its own group of reports and shared files.
Is it possible to open the files (without downloading them) from a webpage? Meaning that they file is opened from the file server? I don't want people to download a copy of the file.
I am pretty sure this can work with IE because sharepoint does it. However, other browsers may have an issue.
EDIT: What I would like is to have a web page with links to the files. When they click on a link (say for a word doc), word will open the file that resides on the file server. Without out a local copy downloaded from the network share.
EDIT2: Please note, I know what I am asking is probably not possible in all browsers. I am more or less just making sure. It seems possible in IE using activeX, but out side of that browsers do a good job at keeping processes inside a sandbox.
3 options. Remember this is for an internal website.
link to the share using file://. This will have the side affect of downloading the file to be viewed. As long as user clicks open every time it should not be a big deal.
Use JavaScript and activeX to open word (excel, reader, ect) passing in the file path as a command line arguments. This works only in IE and in win7 (probably vista) user will get a pop up asking if it is ok for the activeX control to run.
Create a new protocol. openfile://. This would be set up to run an application that is installed on the client machine which would open the file. Since it is internal, the application could be installed on the machines without issues. This also requires a registry change.
I haven't picked one as this change is still being looked into but i figure I would update this in case someone runs into something similar.

How Can I Automatically Execute A Link In Internet Explorer

I am trying to create an application to print documents over the web. I have created my document, and made a web page with a meta refresh tag, along the lines of this:
<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="3;http://example.com/download.epl2" />
I specify that the document has a content-type of application/x-epl2, and I have associated .epl2 files on my computer with a program that silently sends them to the printer.
I have put the website into my trusted sites zone.
Currently Internet Explorer pops up the "Open, Save, Cancel" dialog box with no option to automatically open the file.
Is there a setting in IE6/7/8 that I can use to have IE just open the file without prompting?
EDIT
The actual content of the file will differ based on the job, but essentially it is text that follows the Eltron Programming Language.
EDIT
I have accomplished this in both Chrome and Firefox by choosing "Automatically Open Files Of This Type From Now On"
EDIT
The machines this program will be used on will effectively be kiosks that are limited to only accessing my website from their web browsers, so I'm not worried about rogue websites sending documents to my printers.
EDIT
I am using PHP to generate the documents and HTML on the server side, though I expect the solution to be language agnostic.
I would expect that not to be possible, because then you could stumble onto a site that automatically loads and prints a 5000 page document or something, which would not be good.
If you always had a secret desire to develop a custom URL protocol (I know I do), this might be a good excuse to do it. ;-)
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa767914%28VS.85%29.aspx
There are 1-2 prompts when opening such a link for the first time in IE, but you can choose to automatically open them after that.
I would use javascript to make this happen.
Javascript Window Open
EDIT
Since you have control of the windows box you could use an automate script process to interact with the print window.
autoit3: ControlClick
Write a small utility program that does nothing but send the file passed to it on the command-line to the default system printer.
Then, edit the registry under HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT to associate this program with the .epl2 filetype.
I don't have time to investigate it for You, but there were lots of exploits that could be helpful. Using ie6 without certain fixes seems helpful.
Also there should be an option called "Automatic prompting for file downloads". I use Linux nowadays so I can't chceck if it helps. I found it in some docs.
I'm on a Mac at the moment, but if this is possible in IE I would imagine this page holds the answer to it (or at least hints at it) http://support.microsoft.com/kb/883255
I believe what you're looking for is a setting in Windows, not IE:
Microsoft Support: Not Prompted to Specify Download Folder for File
Try using an older version of IE. Security was looser in the older versions and since it's a non-issue, this could be the quickest solution.

LaTeX: Are there any web frontends available?

As of now the workflow is something like, I import an SVN or a CVS repository and then compile a document locally on my machine to get either a ps or a pdf file. But I was wondering if there is a Web front-end to do all the stuff, like for instance, an editor using which you can edit the file online and then download just the pdf file by compiling it?
Any suggestions?
http://www.scribtex.com/pages/index
http://code.google.com/p/latex-lab/
latex-lab will build on top of the google apps editor base...
scribtex is hosted only it looks like.
Another to add to the list is TeXonWeb.
If you mean online LaTeX compilers, then there are two I know of - at baywifi.com (to PDF) and at ScienceSoft (to several formats). Haven't seen any full editors, though.
There is a CMS based on Latex out there at www.osreviews.net.
The best site I found to produce PDF from LaTeX online is PC Shows.
Verbosus offers an Online LaTeX Editor that supports PDF preview, HTTPS, syntax highlighting, code completion, templates, etc. (Additionally it offers an editor for Octave/Matlab)
This is less of a web-based interface than a simple drag-and-drop cgi script that converts latex syntax to a graphic... www.forkosh.com/mimetex.html
latex-online is a simple open source web service that compiles latex sources/public git repos and returns pdf's. It has both a simplistic web front-end and a command-line tool for interacting with the service - you might find it interesting.
One rather new possibility is https://texlive.net/
You can either interactively edit your documents or you can pass your document via the url to it. E.g. a simple hello world document can be constructed as
https://texlive.net/run?%5Cdocumentclass%7Barticle%7D%0A%5Cusepackage%7Bamsmath%7D%0A%5Cbegin%7Bdocument%7D%0AHello%20world!%0A%5Cend%7Bdocument%7D

Customizable / Dynamic SWF generation

Wondered if anybody knows how customizable Flash swf files are made, where there appears to be a template swf that the user can then input some changes (eg text or image) and receives a newly-compiled swf file with their changes.
Some examples:
- http://flashfreezer.com/landingconfetti/index.html
Constraints:
- user receives a single output swf file that can be played with all their changes included. ie there is no reading from an xml file, or using Flashvars.
Been trying different things for a few weeks with no luck!
There are a number of ways, but generally the most common is to either use a SWF generating library (like PHP's) or through server-side compiling.
Normally, this will be a custom or proprietary library which uses the same language that the serve is running (and there are open-source libraries for this in PHP, Perl, Python, Java, C++... etc). The SWF is generated and served up with the appropriate headers so that the browser knows how to re-direct it. Often this will involve a pre-defined template which is then modified slightly for the new input. Only occasionally does this involve the manipulation of pre-generated SWF directly.
The other option is to have a command line call to the Flash IDE or the Flex compiler (and, technically, this can work for CS3 and CS4, though in a very nasty and hackish way) to generate a new version of the SWF on the fly. This is often slower, but it will generally yield a more finished feel to a product.
You could try Swiffotron. It can modify SWF files and do text replace type things on both text elements and in compiled actionscript.
Here's a swiffotron xml job file that does some text replacing.
And here's a swiffotron XML job file that modifies instances on the stage.
I didn't check the site, but the only way I can think of is to read the requirement details through flash (this can be done through plain html also) and then generate the AS files from their templates and compile them at the server side (using mxmlc or other compilers) and give back the SWF.
I get the impression that you're looking for SwfMill. SwfMill creates a swf based on an XML file that you create/define. You could use SwfMill on the server to generate a swf based on user input.

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