ALEPPO Essential

2001/May, Keita KAWABE

ALEPPO is a collection of tools for authoring help files for EPOC operating system. This document is intended to provide information that is needed to do whatever you like (e.g. use your favorite SGML editor instead of Microsoft Word, or use alternative charsets if your target is Asian countries) to write help files for non-unicode EPOC, using ALEPPO. Unfortunately I haven't successfully run ALEPPO under any other OS than Microsoft Windows, so this document is most useful only to Microsoft Windows users for the moment. Two software packages, i.e. alpwrapper.zip and aleppo_patch.zip, are provided, the former being targeted for developers who want to use their favorite SGML editor instead of Microsoft Word, and the latter for those who still want to use Microsoft Word but don't want to be tied with the locale of Microsoft Windows.

• "Introduction" gives the background for writing this document.
• "Basic of ALEPPO toolchain" is the main content of this document, and provides the information for developing your own method to use ALEPPO.
• " Using Emacs as an user interface layer of ALEPPO" is presented as an example of alternative user interface for ALEPPO. Though this is specifically written for using Emacs, this still should be of use in order to use your favorite SGML editor.
• " Use of utf8 unicode charset in ALEPPO" may be of interest for those who are developing for East-Asian, especially Chinese/Japanese/Korean (CJK), market. Both of the user interfaces (i.e. Word and SGML editor) will be covered.
  If you are wondering whether it's possible at all to use East-Asian characters in non-unicode EPOC devices, then "Background: Writing help file for non-unicode EPOC devices in East-Asian (non-CP1252) character sets" gives you some of the background information.

Note that the author has no responsibility for any kind of consequences which may be caused by the contents of this document. See the "Legal Notice" page for this.

A Detailed Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Basic of ALEPPO toolchain
  • Toolchain summary
  • Commandline syntax of almain, an SGML to EPOC data converter
  • SGML File Format
  • Straightforward DTD for EPOC help
  • Making Life Easier
    • A Small Wrapper
    • An easier-to-live-with DTD
• Use of Emacs as an user interface layer of ALEPPO
  • psgml
  • nsgmls
  • DOCTYPE Management
    • CATALOG file
    • Custom DTD
  • File extension
  • My sample .emacs
  • Mini tutorial: a simple help file
  • What should be done next?
• Use of utf8 unicode charset in ALEPPO
  • Which environment for East-Asian characters?
  • Note on writing in UTF8 for UniFEP Environment
  • Patching ALEPPO to use UTF8 in EPOC help(for MS Word users)
  • Using Emacs to use UTF8 in EPOC help
    • Write directly in UTF8
    • When you prefer to write in local encoding
• Legal Notice