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FAR
Features | HTML Editor |
Explorer Tips | Command-Line
Parameters
Uninstalling
FAR | Trouble Shooting |
Other Notes | See Also
FAR is a collection of productivity tools combining advanced find/replace, HTML Help 1.x & MS Help 2.x authoring, FTP, File and ZIP functions in a single interface.
Registration
The FAR download is a full working version. After 4 weeks you will see a registration reminder messages. After 8 weeks you will see timed reminder messages which will make working with FAR difficult. You can dismiss the nag screens and continue working, however at this stage you should either register FAR, or remove FAR from your computer.
Registration of FAR is straight forward. Simply select "Help > Buy FAR" from the main menu or visit our purchase web page. Pay a small fee and we will send you your registration codes which you then enter via "Help > Register FAR" (see FAR main menu). Each user of FAR must register his or her own copy of FAR. You may not share a copy of FAR unless you have purchased multiple licenses. Site and World licenses for FAR are available if you contact us and negotiate a price.
Unicode
FAR version 5 is now a Unicode application just like Windows is. So now even on an English PC, foreign language characters (French, German, Japanese, Chinese etc) will display and enter correctly within FAR. However please remember that Microsoft HTML Help 1.x is an ANSI technology so do not use Unicode when creating .CHM files.
Support
See the FAR Home Page for downloads, FAQ and other information:
http://www.helpwaregroup.com/products/farCan't find a solution to your problem?
Contact us
Get the FAR news letter (recommended). We will email you as each new version of FAR becomes available:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HelpwareFAR
1. How to Create a File List
2. How to Search & Replace
3. How To Create MS Help
File Utilities
- Drop a web site or folder onto FAR. Drop file filters exclude FrontPage special directories and other unwanted files and folders.
- Search and Replace across all FAR list files. Search understands those unexpected line breaks and spaces found in HTML files.
- Advanced Search options allow you find strings that are littered with other HTML elements, and replace strings without disturbing those items.
- Compress files in the FAR list to a PKZip compatible zip file or Microsoft Cabinet (.cab) file.
- View and extract PKZip and Microsoft Cabinet files.
- Copy all files in the list to a new location.
- Create reports or batch files using the list of files.
- Other file utilities - set file attributes, set file date/time, set file encoding, rename file, strip HTML tags.
- FTP file upload.
- Unicode compatible.
- etc
MS HTML Help 1.x
- Help Express - Build help quickly by selecting a local web folder and clicking Create Help.
- Help Wizard - Build complex help files in a friendly wizard environment.
- HTML Help Project Editor - Workshop like editor fixes several bugs found in MS Workshop1.x. Unleashes several handy settings not made available by MS Workshop.
- TOC/Index Editor - Advanced .hhc & .hhk file editor. Drag and drop entire branches (Move and Copy). Easy validation of item links. Quick test mode.
- Find and validate all links inside a CHM. This includes bookmarks and links to files in other CHMs.
- Examine the contents of a Chm file. Test Chm Context IDs. Extract and delete files from a Chm.
- Compare two Chm files for differences.
- Compress CHMs.
- Batch Compile window.
MS Help 2.x
Create help for Visual Studio 2002/2003/2005/2008 (v7.0/v7.1/v8.0/v9.0).
- Help Express - Build help quickly by selecting a local web folder and clicking Create Help.
- Help Wizard - Build complex help files in a friendly wizard environment.
- MS Help 2 Project Editor - Workshop like editor does not required VS.NET, and has more power and features than MS Help SDK (Workshop).
- TOC/Index Editor - Advanced .hxt & .hxk file editor. Drag and drop entire branches (Move and Copy). Easy validation of item links. Excess to all XML settings.
- Examine the contents of a HxS file. Extract and delete files from a HxS file.
- Compare two HxS files for differences.
- Supports ANSI, Unicode and UTF-8 file format.
- MS Help 2 Utilities allows registration, Decompilation and conversion from MS HH 1.x projects.
- Help Viewer - View Help collections using the inbuilt help file viewer. FAR also creates a file association with .HxS files so you can view single help files directly (using a temporary Namespace name).
- Batch Compile window.
MS Help 3.x
- Create help for Visual Studio 2010 and later.
Uncompressed Help (Web Help)
- Add Contents, Index, Search to an existing web site.
- JavaScript controls. HH ActiveX controls. HH Applet controls.
- FAR JavScript Search engine.
- Open a .HHP, .HHC, .HHK, .HxC, .HxT, .HxK or .HxS file by right clicking the file in Windows Explorer and selecting "Open with FAR".
See also: A full list of Explorer file and folder commandsNote that in later versions of Windows (Win XP SP2, Vista) you need to click the "Open With" menu item. Vendors can no longer customize Explorer file context menus.
To get FAR to open .HHC, .HHK, .CHM, .ITS etc files via its command-line you need to specify a "/O" parameter then the filename as the second parameter. The /O is required so that FAR can tell that the command line is valid and not just another DDE command send by Explorer's context menus.
Example 1: To open a file contents.hxt
FAR.EXE /O "c:\my projects\project1\contents.hxt"
Example 2: To create a command button in HomeSite you would:
- Specify the program associated with .HHC, .HHK, .HxT, .HxK and .CHM files as being FAR.EXE
- Specify a FAR command line parameter of "/O %CURRENT%"
Note: HomeSite uses "%CURRENT%" to represent the full path of the current file.Note: You can also open files in FAR by Shift+Dropping them onto FAR. EG. Drag and drop a .HHP file onto FAR and hold down Shift while releasing the mouse button. Instead of the file appearing in the FAR file list, FAR will open the file in the HHP Project Editor. This method also resolves Windows shortcut items EG. Shift+Drop a Shortcut to a Folder onto FAR, and FAR will load the contents of that folder into the file list. Normally you would simply see a .lnk file appear in the FAR file list.
FAR has a built-in MS Help 2 viewer. To open a MS Help 2 collection, specify a Namespace, prefixed with "ms-help://", as the FAR command-line parameter.
Example 1: To open a help namespace called FRED.
FAR.EXE ms-help://FRED
Example 2: To open namespace MS.VSCC at a particular topic.
FAR.EXE ms-help://MS.VSCC/MS.MSDNVS/dnmsdn/html/msdnres.htm
Windows XP
1. Select Control Panel ? Add/Remove Programs.
2. Select "FAR" from the list and click "Add/Remove".Windows Vista
1. Select Control Panel > Program and Features.
2. Select "FAR" from the list and click "Uninstall/Change".
Why does FAR crash sometimes when compiling HTML Help?
The MS HTML Help compiler (HHA.DLL) can cause access violations when parsing certain HTML files. The following can crash HHA.DLL and kill FAR in the process.
- Filenames of the form xxx.hxxx.gif or xxx.hxxx.jpg are interpreted incorrectly as HTML files.
- HTML files containing poorly written code. EG. Closing or starting tags are missing.
- Control characters left in HTML files.
The only fix at the moment is to modify the files. It sometimes takes a lot of work to track down these bugs.
For more tips see:
http://kb.helpwaregroup.com/ms-html-help/hh-faq
Shutdown
When closing FAR, the current file list automatically saved (if not empty, and is <= 10000 items, and not already saved to disk), to the file _LastFARList.FAR in the last save folder.
FAR FTP - Portions of this software are Copyright (c) 1993 - 2003, Chad Z. Hower (Kudzu) and the Indy Pit Crew - http://www.IndyProject.org/