Information Presentation Facility (IPF) is a system for presenting online help

Online help

Online help is topic-oriented, procedural or reference information delivered through computer software. It is a form of user assistance. Most online help is designed to give assistance in the use of a software application or operating system, but can also be used to present information on a broad...

 and hypertext

Hypertext

Hypertext is text displayed on a computer or other electronic device with references to other text that the reader can immediately access, usually by a mouse click or keypress sequence. Apart from running text, hypertext may contain tables, images and other presentational devices. Hypertext is the...

 on IBM

IBM

International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...

 OS/2

OS/2

OS/2 is a computer operating system, initially created by Microsoft and IBM, then later developed by IBM exclusively. The name stands for "Operating System/2," because it was introduced as part of the same generation change release as IBM's "Personal System/2 " line of second-generation personal...

 systems. IPF also refers to the markup language

Markup language

A markup language is a modern system for annotating a text in a way that is syntactically distinguishable from that text. The idea and terminology evolved from the "marking up" of manuscripts, i.e. the revision instructions by editors, traditionally written with a blue pencil on authors' manuscripts...

 that is used to create IPF content. The IPF language has its origins in BookMaster and Generalized Markup Language developed by IBM. The IPF language is very similar to the well-known HTML

HTML

HyperText Markup Language is the predominant markup language for web pages. HTML elements are the basic building-blocks of webpages....

 language, version 3.0, with a range of additional possibilities. Therefore a trained user may use virtually any word processor when creating IPF documents. The IPF language consists of 45 basic commands.

IPF files are compiled using the IPF Compiler (IPFC) into viewable INF or HLP files. IPF HLP files are distinct from the WinHelp

WinHelp

Microsoft WinHelp is a proprietary format for online help files that can be displayed by the Microsoft Help browser winhelp.exe or winhlp32.exe. The file format is based on Rich Text Format . It remained a popular Help platform from Windows 3.0 platform through Windows XP...

 HLP files that are prevalent in Windows

Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...

.

OS/2 contains a built in viewer, and there are other viewers available for other platforms.

Example 1 - IBM

Here is a sample of IPF markup from IBM's Information Presentation Facility Programming Guide.

     .*

     :userdoc.

     :title.Endangered Mammals

     :h1 res=001.The Manatee

     .*

     :p.

     The manatee has a broad flat tail and two flipper

     like forelegs.  There are no back legs.

     The manatee's large upper lip is split in two and

     can be used like fingers to place food into the

     mouth.  Bristly hair protrudes from its lips,

     and almost buried in its hide are small eyes, with

     which it can barely see.

     .*

     :euserdoc.

Example 2 - PM123 User's Manual

lm margin=2.:font facename=Helv size=24x10.
p.:hp8.Welcome to PM123 !:ehp8.
font facename=Helv size=16x8.
p.:p.


Hello and welcome to the wonderful world of digital music on OS/2. First we

must congratulate you for choosing the best MPEG-audio player available for

OS/2! PM123 has been in development since beginning of 1997 and has become

the most advanced player on OS/2. Some of you may have used the earlier

betas of PM123 and for your convenience, here are the new features in this

release:

.br

ul compact.
li. New skin options, allowing PM123 to be modified to just about anything.
li. Graphical :hp2.equalizer:ehp2., including pre-amplification and band mute.
li. Support for plugins, a :hp2.spectrum analyzer:ehp2. and :hp2.oscilloscope:ehp2. plugin.
li. :hp2.Playlist Manager:ehp2. for users, allowing easier managing of playlists.
li. Better HTTP streaming support: support for URLs in playlist, and M3Us for playlists.
li. Recursive directory adding.
li. Commandline and remote control of PM123.
li. General improvements in all parts of the player.
eul.


.br

.br

Status of IPF

IPF is still used as part of OS/2's latest incarnation, eComStation

EComStation

eComStation or eCS is a PC operating system based on OS/2, published by Serenity Systems. It includes several additions and accompanying software not present in the IBM version of the system.-Differences between eComStation and OS/2:...

. It is otherwise rarely used, although there are several tools that can read or write IPF files.

• HTMIPF: Converts HTML to IPF
• HyperMake: Multi-format documentation generator
• IPF Editor: Commercial IPF editor
• UDO: Open source multi-format documentation generator
• VyperHelp: Open source IPF editor and converter
• Free Pascal
  Free Pascal
  Free Pascal Compiler is a free Pascal and Object Pascal compiler.In addition to its own Object Pascal dialect, Free Pascal supports, to varying degrees, the dialects of several other compilers, including those of Turbo Pascal, Delphi, and some historical Macintosh compilers...
  
  's documentation generator (fpdoc), can also generate OS/2's IPF output.

Help Viewers

• The original OS/2
  OS/2
  OS/2 is a computer operating system, initially created by Microsoft and IBM, then later developed by IBM exclusively. The name stands for "Operating System/2," because it was introduced as part of the same generation change release as IBM's "Personal System/2 " line of second-generation personal...
  
   VIEW.EXE application
• NewView v2.x. This is an open source project and code is available from Netlabs. The current homepage of NewView is here.
• Free Pascal
  Free Pascal
  Free Pascal Compiler is a free Pascal and Object Pascal compiler.In addition to its own Object Pascal dialect, Free Pascal supports, to varying degrees, the dialects of several other compilers, including those of Turbo Pascal, Delphi, and some historical Macintosh compilers...
  
  's text base IDE has support for various help formats - OS/2
  OS/2
  OS/2 is a computer operating system, initially created by Microsoft and IBM, then later developed by IBM exclusively. The name stands for "Operating System/2," because it was introduced as part of the same generation change release as IBM's "Personal System/2 " line of second-generation personal...
  
  's INF format being one of them.
• The fpGUI Toolkit
  FpGUI
  fpGUI, the Free Pascal GUI toolkit, is a cross-platform graphical user interface toolkit developed by Graeme Geldenhuys. fpGUI is open source and free software, licensed under a Modified LGPL license...
  
   project also has a INF viewer called DocView. It is a open source project and was originally a port of NewView v2.x, but has since seen some different designs and changes. INF is also the official help file format of fpGUI Toolkit
  FpGUI
  fpGUI, the Free Pascal GUI toolkit, is a cross-platform graphical user interface toolkit developed by Graeme Geldenhuys. fpGUI is open source and free software, licensed under a Modified LGPL license...
  
  .

External links

• INF file format
• Skins.cz - Complete articles in the INF format
• PM123man.INF - PM123 User's Manual version 0.99 (Source File Distribution, 298 KB)