[Irl-dean] Some Comments on Accessibility of CHM Format Resources

[Barry McMullin]

On Tue, 7 Jun 2005 joshue wrote:

>     * Can .chm files be outputted as HTML with the rich media content
>       again  "separated" from the .chm, placed in sub-directories and
>       then linked from an outputted HTML file?

According to one vendor, they can:

 "The converted document can be readily re-purposed, for example
 into web pages, with a full navigation structure, to be read on
 line."

The quotation comes from this URL:

  <http://www.bigrivertv.com/omnidoc.html>


More detailed information on this is available at the Micrsoft
HTML Help site:

<http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/htmlhelp/html/vsconoverweb.asp>

though I am not clear that this is actually for "unpacking" a CHM
file, or just a different way of "processing" the original source
files.  In any case, some caution in in order: the output of the
processing about seems to yield either something that uses
frameset or relies on client side executable content (java or
active-X); both of which would raise a number of accessibility
questions.

I also found these "CHM decompilers":

<http://www.etextwizard.com/chmdecompiler.html>
<http://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/chmdeco>

so there are a variety of options out there.

>     * Are companies being sold the .chm document conversion tools with
>       the idea that they can put their "converted" .chm files or
>      automatically generated output online, and that it will be accessible?

At least one enquiry which I received suggested that this was
indeed the "promise".  In theory, it may actually be an "honest"
offer - i.e., to convert a document to fully accessible
HTML/XHTML + CSS and *also* provide a CHM package of this same
content.  Obviously this would not be a question of selling
tools, but of selling a service. But I don't think the CHM angle
either helps or hinders the process of generating accessible
content, so it seems to be a bit of a distraction.  This is
naturally confusing to at least some potential clients.  I
couldn't comment on whether the generation of such confusion is
intentional or otherwise!

Best - Barry.