Re: using gnome-help-caller

[Michael Lausch <mla gams co at>]

>>>>> "mg" == Mark Galassi <rosalia@cygnus.com>
>>>>> wrote the following on Sat, 31 Oct 1998 16:41:22 -0700 (MST)

mg> Dudes, I have a (for now ugly) hack to try to display
mg> context-sensitive help in a GNOME application I'm writing.

mg> I haven't figured out if there is a proper way to do it, but I
mg> remember seeing a program called gnome-help-caller, so I played with
mg> it and discovered that I can do

mg> 	system("echo URL | gnome-help-caller");

mg> and it will start a new window with the URL open.

mg> This begins to get there, but I have a few questions:

mg> 1. Would the authors of gnome-help-caller mind if I add some command
mg>    line options for things like "--url-new-window" and
mg>    "--url-same-window"?

If you prepend a '#' to the URL, the help will be shown in the _last_
created window.

mg> 2. gnome-core/help-browser/Makefile.am does not create a
mg>    libgnome-help.*a library, but I think it could do so easily, since
mg>    it already defines the macro

mg> ORBIT_HELP_CLIENT_SOURCES   = $(ORBIT_HELP_COMMON_SOURCES) \
mg> 			      help-browser-stubs.c

mg>    One could add something like the folliwng (I haven't tried this at
mg>    all):

mg>    lib_LTLIBRARIES = libgnome-help.la
mg>    libgnome_help_la_SOURCES = $(ORBIT_HELP_CLIENT_SOURCES)

mg>    and build a libgnome-help.la library, which applications could use
mg>    to not have to do a clumsy system() call.

mg>    So the question is: do the help-browser authors mind if I attempt
mg>    to create such a library?

No.

mg> 3. What are the goals of the help-caller?

It's a demonstration program to illustrate the usage of
gnome-help-browser at the client side. It's by no means a good
implementation and i used it as a test program during development of
the CORBA interface to gnome-help-browser.