The only way to generate .chm files is to use Microsoft's HTML Help Compiler hhc.exe from the HTML Help Workshop. It can be downloaded free of charge from their website. While the workshop tool is a GUI application, hhc.exe can run completely without any windowing environment on a server - ideal for an headless web server like pear.php.net. I already got it running on my Linux desktop at home using Wine, so I chose to go the same way on the server.

He actually starts out the post with a brief history of some of the work that's been done on the PhD tool to incorporate things like screenshots and image support as well as improvements to character set handling.

As far as installing the Help Complier, he offers two helpful tips on things to watch for - the need for X forwarding to display the windows for the installation and a need to install some extra DLL files to correct this bug with Wine.

Given the high number of shared hosts still running PHP4, the backwards compatibility issues going from 4->5 (yes, there are some!) and the new PHP4 "end of life" date (8/8/8), someone will likely find a way to make these run together, and possibly even charge money for it.

He suggests that many hosts out there would happily pay a sum to get this kind of functionally for their customers. It would provide a solution to customers who just don't understand the force towards PHP5 and would make them (and their PHP4 applications) happier.

Today it is exactly three years ago since PHP 5 has been released. In those three years it has seen many improvements over PHP 4. PHP 5 is fast, stable & production-ready and as PHP 6 is on the way, PHP 4 will be discontinued.

The PHP development team hereby announces that support for PHP 4 will continue until the end of this year only. After 2007-12-31 there will be no more releases of PHP 4.4. We will continue to make critical security fixes available on a case-by-case basis until 2008-08-08. Please use the rest of this year to make your application suitable to run on PHP 5.

They link to a migration guide for users moving up from PHP4 to PHP5 including guides for the PHP 5.0 to 5.1 switch and the PHP 5.1 to 5.2 switch.

Community Posts:

• Derick Rethans
• Clay Loveless
• Antony Dovgal
• Nick Halstead
• comments on the php|architect site
• Lukas Smith
• Gregory Szorc
• Marco Tabini
• Vidyut Luther
• PHPEverywhere