| Re: Online help with non-windowing devices [message #4628 is a reply to message #4452] |
Thu, 29 June 1995 00:00  |
scowen
Messages: 11
Registered: December 1992
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Junior Member |
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Mark Rivers (rivers@cars3.uchicago.edu) wrote:
: Prior to IDL 4.0 I could get online help by typing '?', and I would get a
: text-based interface to the online help. Not beautiful, but it did the job.
: This no longer works, IDL tries to use the hypertext help and I get an X error
: opening display.
: There was a post about a month ago which described a way to get the old widget
: based help by using WIDGET_OLH. The old text based help was done with the
: routine MAN_PROC. MAN_PROC still exists in IDL_DIR/lib/, but when I run it
: there appears to be no online help library available?
Yes, there's a way to do this. I have extensive sets of my own help files
that I merge into the system help databases, but with this bloody new
hyperhelp (piece of crap if you ask me) you can only merge files in .hlp
format for which there are no compilation routines provided. When you run
MAN_PROC it sees nothing because IDL v4.0 comes with no .help files in the
help/ dir under the IDL tree. What you have to do is go into the pro dirs in
the tree and build your own sets of .help files using MK_LIBRARY_HELP and
then dump those files into the help/ dir. Then MAN_PROC will see them. I've
given up on hyperhelp and use widget_olh pretty much all the time.
I've raised this with RSI and was about the 550th person to do so - RSI is
getting the company who wrote the interface (its not even in-house fer crying
out loud) to address the flexibility issues and expects to release a new
version of hyperhelp sometime very soon (don't hold your breath).
PS. Anybody else noticed how some keywords are now no longer valid on
certain routines?? The only really irritating one I've found so far is the
dropping of CHANNEL as a valid keyword to PLOTS and XYOUTS - way to go with
backward compatibility RSI!!
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Paul A. Scowen | Internet: scowen@tycho.la.asu.edu
Dept of Physics & Astronomy | paul.scowen@asu.edu
Arizona State University | Bitnet: scowen@asu
Box 871504, Tempe, AZ 85287-1504 | WWW: http://wfpc3.la.asu.edu/scowen.html
Tel/FAX: (602) 965-0938 / 7954 | http://wfpc3.la.asu.edu/sah.html
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