Django 1.4 help file CHM version (and how to build your own)

UPDATE 2012-06-04: God save the Queen! Thanks to the long "Jubilee Holiday Weekend", I got around generating an updated version for Django 1.4. Here it is: Djangodocs 1.4 in CHM format. Enjoy!

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This is a funny story.

I happen to think Microsoft's proprietary CHM format is lovely. So I went looking for a CHM version of docs for Django, and google found it for me on this blog. I duly downloaded it, tried to to open it and... it wouldn't display. I could only see the TOC, but not the actual documents. I thought this might be a corrupted version, and it was for an alpha release of Django anyway, so I though I'd compile a version myself. After all, these docs are built with Sphinx, which apparently can generate all sorts of formats...

So here's the procedure to compile django's docs:

1. download and install Sphinx.

   Easy_install Sphinx

   was all I needed. Hurrah for Python.
2. ADDITIONAL STEP for v1.4: modify _theme\djangodocs\layout.html to remove all javascript tags, otherwise you'll get jQuery-related errors in the final output. This is a known bug.
3. Run Sphinx to generate the initial files:

   cd Django-1.1/docs
   mkdir _build/html
   %PYTHONDIR%\scripts\sphinx-build.exe -b htmlhelp -d _build\doctrees . _build\html
   

4. Download and install Htmlhelp.exe from the Microsoft site. This will give you the HTML Help Workshop. Note: it doesn't matter if you get a final message saying you already have a more recent version.
5. launch the workshop, File -> Compile..., select the file Djangodoc.hhc which should now be in _build/html, and this will produce the chm.
6. ...??? Profit!

... Then I found out the reason that downloaded CHM didn't work was a stupid patch from Microsoft. Ouch.

Anyway, if you need it, here's the file: Djangodocs 1.1 in CHM format. If it doesn't work, make sure you follow this suggested procedure, and save yourself some time...