ngdb 0.3.0

ngdb - Norton Guide database reading library.

ngdb - A Python library for reading Norton Guide database files

Introduction

Back in the mists of time, in the days of MS-DOS and Clipper programming, Norton Guide database files were a very popular form of hypertext help. Lots of information is still kicking around inside such files.

This library is another in a reasonably long line of tools I've written to help keep that information available.

TODO

The library is now at a point where the reading of guides works fine, and it has plenty of test coverage too (in fact it should be 100% if I've not messed up). What's lacking right now us user documentation and an example tool or two.

They are to come.

My intention is to make a binary utility or two that go along with this library that will do things like turn a Norton Guide database into a series of HTML pages, or extract as a Markdown document, or something like that.

Eventually I'll create another project or two off the back of this, which will be separate from this. For example, I'd like to create a CHUI reader all in Python, and also perhaps a guide server based on Flask.

For now though... if you're happy diving through the library docs (make rtfm is your friend), there should be enough to get started.

Installing

ngdb is available from pypi and can be installed with pip or similar Python package tools:

$ pip3 install -U ngdb

Tools

ngdb also installs the following tools:

• nginfo
  Simple tool that serves as an example of using the library: given a series of files on the command line, it prints a simple list of the files showing what type of NG file it is (Norton Guide or Expert Help), as well as its title.