There is a quiet revolution that is brewing at M$. I got hints of it from reading the article in the HTML Help section. Looks like M$ is pushing the W3C committee to adopt there new format called compressed HTML.
This has some realy neat components. The basics are as follows. An entire web site will be compressed into a compressed HTML file that will have all the graphics, multimedia, HTML pages etc in it. Data will be sent over the internet compressed and decompressed via the browser. While that is not a big deal for graphics, multimedia now as most are allready compressed, the text in HMTL sites is not and will transfer much faster. As will noncompressed graphic formats such as bmp.
The second advantage is that the compressed file format will allow full text searches of an entire site via the browser, without any additional functions having to be built into the web site. Think of it as every site having a full text search engine.
This compressed HTML format will supplant current help files. WinHelp 3.1 and 4.0 will not be updated. HTML help will become the defacto standard.
Beyond this I think the compressed HTML format will really become the standard for all types of documents from word proccessing files to excell sheets to desktop publishing. The advantages are clear, not only do you get all the features of the native application (word, excell, etc) but you get built in features of HTML with local and internet wide linking.
Some sample application ideas to show you how this works.
Imagine a help file were if you have problems, you click on the help button and it fires off a video conference to the help desk over the internet.
In your letter, you have a active link to your website. Click on it in the letter and you jump to the site.
In your excel sheet you have a link to a streaming real audio site to hear a financial report.
The possibilities are limitless and this flexibility of incorporating the rapidly expanding HTML functions with Java and Active X into any application I think will make compressed HTML a natural choice.
As always, opinions welcomed.
