Re: Compiling text files
By: Boondock to MRO on Mon Jun 07 2021 07:50 pm

Re: Compiling text files
By: MRO to Boondock on Mon Jun
07 2021 13:30:09

i wouldnt use a txt to exe program

<shrug> You do you.

Why this came up for me is that there was a pretty remote village in the DRC where a collegue was working for an NGO/UN on De-mining and IDP issues.
The local chieftan has an old PC, a 286 actually, that is his pride and joy. The issue was when he was provided with the various bits of documentation and information he was supposed to use in support of the issues there, he smugly insisted that *his* computer couldn't use any of this modern stuff. He further insisted that it wasn't is computer at fault, but that of the arrogant foreigners trying to tell him what to do. He insisted that if we couldn't give him the information in a format that he could read on his computer, in a friendly and easy way, then it was the foreigner's fault and not his.
My mate sent me a frantic message asking for help. He sent me the info in French, English and Swahili, and I worked on it for about six hours before sending him back a single .EXE file which he could put onto a disk for the chief, who was gobsmacked when he ran it and it displayed perfectly, in colour, in a series of cascading windows. THAT'S what prompted my question; a real-world situation that is not that unusual once you are a few meters off the beaten path.
In subsequent discussions, we decided to look around to see if there was a more modern equivelant that would hopefully work cross platform.
We're looking to see if we can find something, hopefully that will accept something convertable by Pandoc, and preferably something that takes MarkDown as input (even if it needs a few extensions.

this shit reads like one of those nigerian prince emails.

Got any useful suggestions?

tell him to get his shit together.
this is stupid.
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Re: Re: Compiling text files
By: John Dovey to Ragnarok on Mon Jun 07 2021 01:27 pm

Re: Re: Compiling text files
By: Ragnarok to John Dovey on
Mon Jun 07 2021 13:24:44

Norton Guides?

Problem with all this stuff is it's windows based. I think I'll go for my original idea and write a shell.

if you need a dos program to display text files there's tons of them.

you can use rtreader for example. sometimes they compile them into exes, sometimes not.

i used to use one that compiled it into a fancy reader with search functions. ---
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Re: Compiling text files
By: MRO to Boondock on Mon Jun 07 2021 22:24:56

this shit reads like one of those nigerian prince emails.
tell him to get his shit together.
this is stupid.

It's a fked up place. When wrote "The Heart of Darkness" this is literally where he was writing about. Literally and figuratively.

I deployed there in 2013/14 as Combat Demolitions Team Leader as part of the UN Force Intervention Brigade. Some of the things we saw will live with me till the day I die. The casual brutality and lack of any consideration for the santity of life is breathtaking. I personally witnessed bunches of stuff, but one image that will live with me is that of a local strongman hacking open a young woman (15 or 16 yo) and plucking the unborn child out of her womb and throwing it into the river. Simply on a whim and as an intimidation tactic.
I saw a father kill his own child to try to claim $100 compensation from the UN. This is nothing. Business as usual. In fact, this particular guy we suspet is one of the holdovers from the Rwandan Genocide (Go watch Hotel Rwanda for a bit of the horror that was) who fled across the border in the aftermath of the Hutu/Tutsi conflict and set himself up as a warlord ^h^h^h local chief. He's screwing with us. We know it and he KNOWS we know it. This was both a "gotcha" type situation and a neccesary evil to gain a foorhold in this area in order to address some of the issues there with IDPs and Landmines etc.
That being said, the issue is a real one. I've seen the suggestions of plain text etc. Part of the issue is to make it non trivial to just change what the documents say so they can be passed off as bad information coming from the foreigners. This is a complex, multifaceted initiative and a truly fraught situation. Nothing is simple and nothing is easy.
I don't know if it pinged on your radar, but Mount Niragongu (sp?) has just erupted again for the second time since 2009 about a week back. The lava was flowing within a couple of hunderd meters of his house when the guys were there...


JD
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On 6/7/2021 1:34 PM, Digital Man wrote:

Got any useful suggestions?

I'm not clear what's wrong with a plain old ASCII text file.
They're viewable on pretty much any computer from any era
since 1970.

Agreed.

These days, UTF8 (without BOM) is the norm for any extended
characters. For that matter, just straight Markdown files
themselves, since you can read them and they're pretty easy to
understand as straight text and can use a markdown viewer/editor
on whatever platform desired if so desired.
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John Dovey wrote to All <=-

I am looking at something like a compiled version of html or markup
which stands alone. If anyone knows of anything similar, I'd love to
hear about it.

As another thought, this is sort of similar to the CHM (Compiled help) files that used to be included with windows software created in a piece
of MS softare called something like "MS Helpdesk" which has since
vanished from the Microsoft site.

Help?

As you're aware of CHM format then I won't suggest you check that direction. I would not either way as this is heavily obsolete and historic format these
ays.

Aside of the choice of technology, what is the goal you want to achieve.

Do you want something more like bundled, media interactive and hyperlinks connected ebook or magazine experience that can be consumed as an app on various platforms?

That's the idea?

/h1

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