| painful IDL 7 online help [message #60841] |
Fri, 20 June 2008 05:13  |
![LC's No-Spam Newsread[1] is currently offline](theme/default/images/xoffline.png.pagespeed.ic.XRkd1fkXye.png "LC's No-Spam Newsread[1] is currently offline")
LC's No-Spam Newsread[1]
Messages: 8
Registered: June 2008
|
Junior Member |
|
|
Our institute just switched to IDL 7.
I find that accessing the online help interface ( ? command) has become
extremely painful.
My environment is Linux Suse 9.2, and I use fvwm as window manager (with
two desktops with four workspaces each). Incidentally I have configured
the window manager so that my web browser (firefox) always opens in a
dedicated workspace.
And of course I usually run idl in another (any other) workspace.
In the past when I typed ? command in my idl session (runtime "idl"
command, no development environment !) it opened an online help window
in the same workspace. Now the help window is opened in the firefox
workspace. This is painful enough.
What is more painful is that each time I click on a link in the help
pages, they open a new window each time. With no obvious way of closing
them other than the window manager menu bar, there is quickly a plethora
of help windows saturating the screen.
Apparently neither the usual firefox mouse tricks to open link in same
window or tab in same window, nor the firefox preferences are honoured.
This de facto makes the help environment unusable (e.g. to get the
necessary information on a seldom used command and associated keywords)
--
------------------------------------------------------------ ----------
nospam@mi.iasf.cnr.it is a newsreading account used by more persons to
avoid unwanted spam. Any mail returning to this address will be rejected.
Users can disclose their e-mail address in the article if they wish so.
|
|
|
|
| Re: painful IDL 7 online help [message #60950 is a reply to message #60841] |
Mon, 23 June 2008 14:41  |
Douglas Dirks
Messages: 5
Registered: June 2008
|
Junior Member |
|
|
On Jun 20, 6:13 am, LC's No-Spam Newsreading account
<nos...@mi.iasf.cnr.it> wrote:
> Our institute just switched to IDL 7.
>
> I find that accessing the online help interface ( ? command) has become
> extremely painful.
>
> My environment is Linux Suse 9.2, and I use fvwm as window manager (with
> two desktops with four workspaces each). Incidentally I have configured
> the window manager so that my web browser (firefox) always opens in a
> dedicated workspace.
>
> And of course I usually run idl in another (any other) workspace.
>
> In the past when I typed ? command in my idl session (runtime "idl"
> command, no development environment !) it opened an online help window
> in the same workspace. Now the help window is opened in the firefox
> workspace. This is painful enough.
>
> What is more painful is that each time I click on a link in the help
> pages, they open a new window each time. With no obvious way of closing
> them other than the window manager menu bar, there is quickly a plethora
> of help windows saturating the screen.
>
> Apparently neither the usual firefox mouse tricks to open link in same
> window or tab in same window, nor the firefox preferences are honoured.
>
> This de facto makes the help environment unusable (e.g. to get the
> necessary information on a seldom used command and associated keywords)
The behavior of the Eclipse help system on which IDL's help system is
based appears to be quite sensitive to the version of the GTK+
library.
The IDL workbench and help system will run on systems with a minimum
GTK+ version of 2.4, but will run much more smoothly when GTK+ version
2.10 or higher is installed.
I don't have access to a SUSE 9.2 system, but our experience is that
systems with GTK+ 2.10 or higher will use the Eclpise "internal" help
browser by default. (It actually uses a Mozilla or Firefox rendering
engine, but it appears as a stand-alone help browser rather than in
your
normal web browser.) GTK+ 2.10 systems also do not exhibit the
behavior
where a new browser window opens each time you click a link, whereas
some GTK+ 2.4 systems do.
As I said, I don't have SUSE system handy, but on the machines I have
access to the following command gives you information about the GTK
version:
rpm -q gtk2
IF your system has an older GTK+ library, and IF there is an IDL user
at your site with a newer version (GTK+ 2.10 came out in July 2006),
you could check to see whether they experience the same difficulties.
I don't know if upgrading either the entire OS or just the GTK+
library
would be an option, but it's the best suggestion I have to make the
help system more useful.
Regards,
Doug Dirks
----------------
Douglas G. Dirks
IDL Documentation Group * ITT Visual Information Solutions
4990 Pearl East Circle * Boulder, CO 80301
|
|
|
|
comp.lang.idl-pvwave archive
Members
Search
Help
Login
Home
