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Author Topic: Help issues... confirm and I'll post to bugs  (Read 3499 times)

dsiders

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Help issues... confirm and I'll post to bugs
« on: March 31, 2018, 02:54:41 am »
Using:

Lazarus 1.8.2
FPC 3.0.4
Windows 8.1 64-bit

These items have bugged me for a while, and the never seem to get fixed in new
 releases. If someone can confirm, I'll post to the bug tracker. Some are Lazarus
 related, some are FPC related... so I may need some advice on categories in the
 bug tracker.


Installing Help files

I can understand why help files are not installed by default with the IDE (kind of).
But instructions in ($LazarusDir)/docs/chm are not up-to-date. They've never been
updated to reflect the new location for chm files.

PATCH ($LazarusDir)/docs/chm/readmechm.txt

13c13
< - Copy the chms to docs/html in the Lazarus directory.
---
> - Copy any chm, xct, or kwd files to docs/chm in the Lazarus directory.
17a18,19
> Note that toc.chm is not loaded by the LHelp CHM viewer at the present time.
>

In addition, the Lazarus IDE should have a Help > "Installing Help Files" item that
explains where to get CHM files and how to install them. Or, at a minimum, a link
to the wiki page at  http://wiki.freepascal.org/Installing_Help_in_the_IDE.


LHelp Issues

The LHelp CHM viewer application places extraneous "[]" characters in the title for
CHM files.

($LazarusDir)/components/chm/lhelp/chmcontentprovider.pas (line 744)

TChmContentProvider.UpdateTitle wrongly includes "[" and "]" characters in the
title even when no tree-structured path info is available.

It could be argued that  the concept is not needed at all - since CHM files are
self-contained and toc.chm is ignored. But that's a different issue.


CHM Issues

fpdoc.chm
prog.chm
ref.chm
user.chm
toc.chm

All of these CHM files do not have a title in the lhelp Tabs control.
They all also have a "missing index.html!" message in the status area.
It could be that the Default Topic for the generated help file is not set correctly. In
MS HTML Help Workshop it would be an entry in the project file, and yes I know
these were not generated with HHW.

(see attached pictures lhelp1.png, lhelp2.png, and lhelp3,png)

toc.chm is related. No content is displayed by default unless opened
using the File > Open menu items.

(see attached pictures toc1.png and toc2.png)


CHM Content issues

prog.chm
ref.chm
user.chm

These files contain non-English content in an English document. They also have
content encoded using an encoding that cannot be displayed in UTF8. But since we have no access to the .xml origin documents - I can't be sure of encoding.

(see attached picture chm1.png)

Any advice about bug categories appreciated.
Preview Lazarus 3.99 documentation at: https://dsiders.gitlab.io/lazdocsnext

dsiders

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Re: Help issues... confirm and I'll post to bugs
« Reply #1 on: March 31, 2018, 02:58:58 am »
Remaining attachments.
Preview Lazarus 3.99 documentation at: https://dsiders.gitlab.io/lazdocsnext

wp

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Re: Help issues... confirm and I'll post to bugs
« Reply #2 on: March 31, 2018, 12:01:02 pm »
Installing Help files

I can understand why help files are not installed by default with the IDE (kind of).
I don't understand. Since you are on Windows you most probably install using the installer. And this does give you the option to install help files. No need to modify any paths. You might argue why the corresponding checkbox is not set by default - well... my personal opinion? The help files are nothing which Lazarus/fpc can be proud of. I'd guess 90% of the files are just autogenerated files without any usable content, and a lot of the rest is  hardly understandable, reads like a machine-translated user-manual of a cheap applicance. Example from "lcl.chm": "TClipboard - area for holding information that has been cut or copied, ready for pasting"

What instructions in ($LazarusDir)/docs/chm are you talking about? On my feshly installed 1.8.2 this folder contains only help files.

I checked the wiki page "http://wiki.freepascal.org/Installing_Help_in_the_IDE", the chapter "Installing CHM help (Lazarus 1.0 and later)" seems to be correct, maybe except for the misleading sentence ""HelpExe" should be the lhelp you just built": on the 1.8.2 version with auto-installed help the corresponding field is empty, i.e. the lhelp.exe path need not be specified if lhelp.exe is at its default location.

LHelp Issues

The LHelp CHM viewer application places extraneous "[]" characters in the title for
CHM files.
Agreed. Please post a bug report, project "Lazarus", category "Documentation" or "Utilities" or "Other" (I don't know for sure - it's not very important, als long as the project is "Lazarus").

CHM Issues

fpdoc.chm
prog.chm
ref.chm
user.chm
toc.chm
Again, post a bug report, now for project FPC, category "Documentation". As for the non-ASCII characters, mention that they are not displayed correctly even by Microsoft's chm help viewer.

You can find the fpc help sources on https://svn.freepascal.org/cgi-bin/viewvc.cgi/trunk/?root=docs&sortby=rev.

dsiders

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Re: Help issues... confirm and I'll post to bugs
« Reply #3 on: March 31, 2018, 09:01:15 pm »

Installing Help files
I can understand why help files are not installed by default with the IDE (kind of).

I don't understand. Since you are on Windows you most probably install using the installer. And this does give you the option to install help files. No need to modify any paths. You might argue why the corresponding checkbox is not set by default - well... my personal opinion?

Apparently I need new glasses, or to be a little less click happy during installs. I just fired up the installer again, and there it is... "Install CHM Files". Senior moment.

What instructions in ($LazarusDir)/docs/chm are you talking about? On my feshly installed 1.8.2 this folder contains only help files.

Well, mine definitely has a file named  ($LazarusDir)/docs/chm/readmechm.txt which contains the out-dated instructions.

I checked the wiki page "http://wiki.freepascal.org/Installing_Help_in_the_IDE", the chapter "Installing CHM help (Lazarus 1.0 and later)" seems to be correct...

Yes. And that is what I was proposing to be added to the Help menu in the IDE. Could still be helpful for others who accidentally click through the option on the installer.


LHelp Issues

The LHelp CHM viewer application places extraneous "[]" characters in the title for
CHM files.

Agreed. Please post a bug report, project "Lazarus", category "Documentation" or "Utilities" or "Other" (I don't know for sure - it's not very important, as long as the project is "Lazarus").

CHM Issues

fpdoc.chm
prog.chm
ref.chm
user.chm
toc.chm

Again, post a bug report, now for project FPC, category "Documentation". As for the non-ASCII characters, mention that they are not displayed correctly even by Microsoft's chm help viewer.

Will do. Thanks for the assist.

You can find the fpc help sources on https://svn.freepascal.org/cgi-bin/viewvc.cgi/trunk/?root=docs&sortby=rev.

Ah. I was not aware of this access. Looks like some of the files are generated using Latex... which I know nothing about. But I can see where (and how) the content in question is generated. Thanks for that.
Preview Lazarus 3.99 documentation at: https://dsiders.gitlab.io/lazdocsnext

wp

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Re: Help issues... confirm and I'll post to bugs
« Reply #4 on: March 31, 2018, 10:23:51 pm »
What instructions in ($LazarusDir)/docs/chm are you talking about? On my feshly installed 1.8.2 this folder contains only help files.
Well, mine definitely has a file named  ($LazarusDir)/docs/chm/readmechm.txt which contains the out-dated instructions.
I found it in an older installation, maybe I did not get it because I normally don't install chm files and just copy the files from another installation to the chm folder if needed.

The text in the readmechm.txt describes installation into the text mode IDE of FPC, not into Lazarus. I agree, this is a bit "off-topic" for a Lazarus installation. Please write a bugreport (project Lazarus, Documentation).

dsiders

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Re: Help issues... confirm and I'll post to bugs
« Reply #5 on: March 31, 2018, 10:28:40 pm »
Please write a bugreport (project Lazarus, Documentation).

Done.
Preview Lazarus 3.99 documentation at: https://dsiders.gitlab.io/lazdocsnext

serbod

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Re: Help issues... confirm and I'll post to bugs
« Reply #6 on: April 27, 2018, 09:02:49 am »
I already done some bugfixes to chm, LHelp and chmmaker packages. But there is too many changes for posting as diff patch to main repository.

http://forum.lazarus.freepascal.org/index.php/topic,38487.15.html
https://github.com/serbod/lazhelp

 

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