Better Xojo Help 0.18.0

v0.18.0 — install documentation without Xojo

New: File ▸ Install Documentation…

If you no longer have a Xojo release installed, its documentation was until now unreachable. This
takes the file directly.

• A legacy XojoLangRefDB — the single SQLite file that is the whole documentation set for
  2015r2.1 through 2021r3.1, about 25 MB.
• A Sphinx-era docs.tgz — the archive every 2022r1-and-later Xojo application bundle carries at
  Contents/Resources/Language Reference/, about 190 MB. Its root is the Documentation folder, so
  it unpacks straight into place.

Both are installed under ~/Library/Application Support/Better Xojo Help/Documentation/, in the same
layout Xojo uses. Your Xojo installation is never written to — this app only ever reads it, and
for the people this feature is for it may not exist at all.

Which release is it for?

Worked out from the file where the file says:

• A legacy database from 2015–2019 carries a version table: 2018,0300.4 means 2018r3.
• A Sphinx set names its release in the notes page its index.html links.

And asked when it does not, which is not a rare case: the 2020–2021 databases carry no version
table at all, and the five oldest Sphinx sets link no release-notes page. Where nothing is found the
file's modification date is offered as a clue — a database dated 2020-12-14 is a 2020r2.x.

The release is confirmed even when detected, because a wrong one is invisible until the version popup
shows the wrong number.

One thing worth knowing: a docs.tgz reports the version of the documentation, which can lag the
IDE by a point release. The archive inside a 2026r1.2 bundle identifies as 2026r1.1.

Already installed?

You are told before the work starts, not after — unpacking 190 MB and then being told it was already
there is no use to anyone. A set this app installed can be replaced; one found in your Xojo
installation is left alone, and you can install your copy alongside it, which then takes precedence.

Removing one

Settings ▸ Open the documentation folder… reveals them in the Finder. There is no delete button
on purpose: the Finder does this better, and a mistaken click here would discard a download you may
have no other copy of.

Other platforms

Windows works. Compiled and run on Windows 11 on ARM against 2026r2: the version popup, the
platform filters, tabs, the MCP server and the layout all behave. An x86-64 build is expected to work
but has not been run.

Linux is not validated. It compiles and finds the documentation, but GTK draws the reading pane at
the top-left of the window instead of beside the topic list. The app's own geometry is correct — the
position is set and reads back correctly — and GTK discards it, so this is not something the layout
can work around. Everything else on that platform is right.

Neither is offered as a download, and that is a size decision rather than a quality one: those
builds embed a Chromium runtime for the documentation viewer, which puts the Windows zip at ~118 MB —
over GitHub's 100 MB file limit. Build from source instead: open the project in Xojo, choose your
target, run. There is nothing to configure.

Download

macOS, universal — Apple Silicon and Intel — signed, notarised and stapled. Attached below and in
Binaries/.