Blender Manuals in CHM Format

Support Basics & Interface
#1

Hi all. I just finished compiling the current version of the Blender User Guide in CHM (aka Microsoft HTMLhelp) format, even spent the time to make a nice table of contents to navigate with. The final filesize is 37.8mb. Can anyone recommend a free webhost with this much space where I could stick it for interested parties to download? I don’t have the bandwidth to do it myself, being a humble ADSL user.

For those who wonder why I’d go to the trouble:

  1. The HTML version is 40.5mb. I know this isn’t some drastic space-savings, but it IS slightly smaller.
  2. One large file doesn’t eat as much HD space as 990+ small files.
  3. It’s nice to have it conveniently packaged. :slight_smile:

Assuming I can find somewhere to host, I’ll have the Reference Guide done in a couple hours or so.

Anyhow, if anybody has a pointer to a host, or would like to host it themselves, I eagerly await a response.

#2

I can’t tell you where to host it but thanks for the work. For myself i think its a briliant idea, and will save some head akes - thanks man

#3

If you have not, Ziping or taring it would bring down the file size for upload/downlaod.

#4

I’ve used this one a couple of times (60mb allowed):
http://www.savefile.com/
At least it’s something until someone offers to host it for you, as I’m sure someone will :slight_smile:

#5

For now, try Bit Torrent. I’ll DL it and seed it for a while. By then you may find a server. Maybe I’ll find a server too.

#6

Bellorum: Thanks, I got an account on there, just waiting for them to free up some disk space.

#7

Strictly speaking, tar-ing it won’t shrink the file, tar just collects several files into one monolithic file without compressing it. gzip or bzip2 each can only compress one file, but if you use it on a tarball then you’re essentially compressing all the files in that tarball together.
Hence .tar.gz and .tar.bz2.
I’d go into the advantages and disadvantages of this vs the more common compress-each-file-separately-and-collect method in .zip and .rar, but this is offtopic enough already…

#8

Aargh! They haven’t fixed that yet? :confused: Now I remember why I haven’t used that site for awhile :frowning: Not the best solution, but rapidshare allows for files up to 50mb:
http://rapidshare.de/

#9

why dont you contact the blender.org admins so they could upload the CHM format manual along with the ones already there in the documentation downloads…?

#10

Until I hear something back from the Blender folk, I finally got the User Guide uploaded to savefile.

http://savefile.com/files/1055702

#11

Finished up the RefGuide. It can be had from:
http://savefile.com/files/8447474

#12

I tried the documentation and I keep getting errors, like this one…
http://mysite.verizon.net/vze3nvj6/Blender/forum/CHM_error.jpg

“J:…” ??? Hmm, looks like you need to use a global array of some sort to direct the files to the same folder that the CHM is on.

#13

Oh yeah… Spins Apartment and Girls Gone Wild!
How you going to live that one down?

%<

#14

How utterly screwed up… Well I’ll see if I can figure out why it decided to go that route and fix it up. Sorry for the trouble.

:: BTW I’ve deleted the broken files off savefile to avoid more people having to hassle with them. ::

#15

down loaded you file at about 15:00 GMT and it worked great for me. i 'm using XP computers behind a fire wall. the first time i got an error but i think it was my servers fault, so i just retried and it worked - tnx

#16

Okay, I’ve recompiled both the manuals but haven’t yet figured out why the Table of Contents stuff won’t work right. These will be pretty much like just browsing them on the web, but I did compile both with full-text search information.

User Guide:
http://www.savefile.com/files/4467133

Reference Guide:
http://www.savefile.com/files/4655157

I had these done early yesterday morning, it’s taken all this time to get them uploaded to savefile.

Both these worked fine for me on other machines, so they should work fine for everybody. Enjoy.

#17

I have the Aug 7, 2005 html manual and I was wondering if your CHM app has some of the new features of 2.40 alpha 1 or 2 in it? I’m sure it will be great to dump my manual and grab this one if it has atleast SOME newer features in it. :slight_smile:

#18

Thanks man!!

I currently have a manual updated on July- 8-04 , is this a more current version ? :Z

#19

dukytyme, Nokturnal: No, these are just compiled versions of the current manuals off the FTP server. Apparently these are likely to become extinct since they’re switching to the wiki for everything. In the meantime though, I’ve been using these quite a lot. Hope they’re useful to others as well.