proposed MIME type, Microsoft Help

Kevin Altis (kevin@scic.intel.com)
Sun, 3 Oct 1993 12:13:56 -0800


Microsoft Help files are the standard HyperText of Windows and are used on
the Macintosh platform as well. The Gopher community has started using them
over the net as a rich document type. I think WWW should support Windows
Help files by having a MIME type and standard extension to look for. This
can get added to the MIME/extension list already in progress:
1. MIME application/x-mshelp or application/hlp or application/microsoft-help
2. under Windows, the extension is .hlp, I don't have a Windows machine
here with me to tell you the program name that actually displays the files.
3. on the Mac, the Type is "HELP", the Creator varies, the Application that
actually displays the files is called "Microsoft Help" with a Creator type
of "MSHE".

Another thing that comes to mind is that a conversion tool from Microsoft
Help to HTML might be worthwhile. I need to get a hold of the tools for
creating help files and file format documentation. Anybody out there know
anything about Microsoft Help files?

ka