while the new help system is cool (well some people like it, I really hate it personally) it was always nice to be able to read the help without having to run houdini…now that the pdf's are gone this is impossible - so I'd like to request that a way be devised to read the help outside of houdini - there is a similar java run help system for maya and it can be read outside of maya - can the same be done for houdini?

On Windows, you could try starting up the “mfcembed” application found in $HFS/mozilla. You might need to start it using Command Line tools. Then put this in the URL:
chrome/houdini/content/houdini.xul

It hasn't been tried in awhile so it may or may not work. No guarentees.

I'll give it a try…