dgHelpBrowser
Attributes
- name
- dgHelpBrowser
- description
- Advanced Help Viewer for Tcl documentation, with contents tree, index lists, and bookmark panel. Currently at version 0.3.12. Currently running on Win32, Linux-x86, SunOS-sun4u, OSF1-alpha, Mac-OSX. Other platforms are provided on request.
- updated
- 2005-06
- contact
- dgroth (at) idolinguo.de
HISTORY
DDG 2012-02-10 Version 0.3.12:
- png image support added for Tclkits version 8.4 and 8.5 (Linux/Win32), 8.6 is inbuild
- if tile widgets are available use ttk::scrollbar at least to plish interface on Linux
- fix mouse wheel bug with Tcl/Tk 8.4
- fixing package mismatch with Tcl/Tk 8.5 - dgHelpBrowser should now run on all systems from Tcl 8.4, Tcl 8.5 and 8.6b2
- fixing broken weblinks
- fixing small scroll issue in the webbrowser
- added Pgtcl1.4 documentation
- added tcl tutorial
- added tsql4mk documentation
- added ratcl 0.92 documentation
DDG 2005-06-01 Version 0.3.11:
- small fix for wikisearch combobox
- fixing gtklook which gives some troubles on certain X-settings
DDG 2005-05-31 Version 0.3.10:
- added Tile 0.6.2 documentation
DDG 2005-04-18 Version 0.3.9:
- added wiki search entry
- added soaptcl docs
- added docs for yeti, fickle, taccle
- added documentation for tclhttpd
- grab fix for the find dialog
- online links are now also defined inside contents.cnt
DDG 2005-03-09 Version 0.3.8:
- added docs for Frink, tkcon,tkinspect,expect
- font now can be choosen also for the tree and the index via Options
- Support for MacOSX-Aqua on Darwin
2005-03-08 Version 0.3.7:
- relational algebra packages ratcl, tclral
- added sqlite3 docs
- fontsize choosable up to 22 for the browser widget
2005-03-04 Version 0.3.6:
- adding tdom,tclxml docs
- fixing a bug with the snitini wrapper
- cursor navigation (Key-Up and Key-Down) inside the searchlistbox was added
2005-03-03 Version 0.3.5:
- added OraTcl,TLS,memchan docus
- some small fixes (see below).
- added comp.lang.tcl link.
- added mousewheel support (thx) to Jeff Hobbs for mentioning this inside the tclkit mailing list
2005-02-28 Version 0.3.4:
- update in documentation, tcltk -> 8.4.9, tcllib -> 1.7, bwidget -> 1.7, adding actions, xmlrpc,combat and some more docs
2004-01-14 Version 0.3.3:
- fixing a bug with internal anchors inside snitbrowser-widget
- adding prefixes for some dirs (xotcl, tclkit) inside the index with .prefix-files
- updating tcldocs: nemethi-packages, bwidgets1.7.0
- adding xotcl-docus, nemethis mentry-docs
- improved outfit on UNIX-platforms
BTW can anyone provide and test Mac-OSX tkhtml shared libs ?, Thanks to JCW for providing shared libs for the MacOSX-Aqua.
Screenshots
LV: Oh, how I love this kit.
Just a few notes.
1. I see the line: anyone interested in implementing the _FormCmd on stderr after some action takes place - I'm uncertain what action it is.
DDG: see snitbrowser; somebody should implement the method _FormCmd.
2. There's an annoying Tk bug that no one's resolved that shows up in the use of the program. It isn't dgHelpBrower's fault, as far as I am aware. But I have a 2 monitor system. When I have dgHelpBrowser on the right hand monitor, then click on the Options Menu button, then on the html fontsize button, the sub-menu shows up way over on the left monitor. If anyone knows how to fix this, I would surely love to hear about it - and would love to see the fix integrated into Tk 8.5!
VK: I think this is very OS dependent. I saw similar behaviour on non-Tk application, but I am not sure right now. What is your OS/PC BTW? I saw this misbehaviour on Windows XP Tablet edition, with application having nothing in common with Tk.
LV: I am using SPARC, Solaris 8, GNOME, Metacity.
3. When one clicks on the help 'contents' entry, the cursor should change into some sort of 'busy' indicator to let the user know that something is happening, then change back when the processing is completed. While often things happen quickly, there are cases where the processing takes a while (the wiki and comp.lang.tcl entries, for instance) and one is left wondering what is going wrong.
DDG: agree but I have always problems with those busy stuffs.
4. Question - is it normal for the contents entries to require double clicks? That's what I am seeing here on my sparc solaris 8 gnome desktop.
DDG: yes this was normal, now I changed it to single clicks!
5. Covering the docs for most of the extensions that appear in activetcl would really be useful - they are, in general, among the most popular. Other docs that would be useful would include things like BLT, OraTcl, listx, mclistbox, memchan, trf, trfcrypt, snack, oomk, tkimg, and tls.
DDG: added memchan,tls and oratcl. oomk is already in (inside mk4tcl). mclistbox is quite old. I would use tablelist instead. Anyway,,, if you want to add your own docs:
- just unwrap the file dgHelpBrowser.kit
- add the docus inside the html dir
- edit contents.cnt,contents.htm
- rewrap
- restart
You can also send me those changes and I might include it in the next release.
6. Two things about $HOME/dgHelpBrowser.ini - first, even though it appears to be saving the font size change off, when I start the program back up again, it doesn't seem to take effect. Also, any chance the file name could be, at least on Unix, something like $HOME/.dgHelpBrowser (so it doesn't show up by default)?
DDG: Done on [tk windowingsystem] eq "x11" and the fontsize should be rembered also now!
LES: Wow. This is great! But I did run into a problem: the mouse wheel does not work. It's not just uncomfortable, it's almost impossible to use because I can only scroll up and down a pane by clicking and dragging the scroll bar on the side, and the left panel is pushed so far to the left that the scroll bar is not visible. I can hold and drag the middle vertical separation and enlarge the left pane, but then the right pane's scroll bar disappears off the screen. Dragging the middle vertical separation in either direction, I actually found a spot that makes both scroll bars disappear, but no spot that would make both of them visible.
DDG: I enabled the mouse wheel and was putting the scrollbar on the left. This panedwindow always behaves a little bit obscure ..... Please redownload ...
LES: Flawless! Many thanks.
LES: I am unhappy again :-( This application ran on my Windows system, but refuses to run on my Linux. Tk does not provide a convenient way to copy all that error message text and I am too lazy to copy all that manually, so here [L1 ] is a screenshot. This must be the same problem I had with Jigsaw Puzzler.
LV: Anyone know what change(s) would be required to Tk so that these type of error message text dialogs would support copy/paste, or at least an option to save the text to a file?
DDG: This seems to be a bug inside an older (?) snit-version where it can't use "$self configurelist $args" if no options are actually declared. So Ideclared an option -dummy and it should work now for you as well. (please not the changed download link at the top).
LES: Yes, it works now. Many thanks, Detlef. But, if you don't hate me yet, I wish it let me have larger fonts. The maximum size you provide still is quite a bit away from optimum.
DDG: Allowed up to 22. Do you want to change the fonts in the tree and index boxes to be enlarged as well ?
LV: If you decide to add the resizing of the tree/index box font size, can you make the sizing separate from that of the body font? That way, when I need a really large text, the overall size of the window still remains reasonable.
LES: I'm in favor of allowing customization of as much as possible (and with that I mean that everything is possible). But, in this particular case, I am quite satisfied. Thank you very much for your attention and generosity.
Whereas jcw favors just the opposite - sensible (as in: go-out-of-your-way-to-get-it-right) defaults, and absolutely minimal well-designed preference dialogs...
LES: My experience with and observation of all software, mailing lists and user-base interaction environments tell me that users absolutely love the ability to customize as much as possible.
DDG: the new release fullfills all desires floating around ... See the history part on top.
PWQ 2005-06-01: On my X11/fvwm system, The treeview on the left has the icons over the top of the category text. Makes it somewhat hard to read. It does not depend on the gui-font selected.
DDG: Thanks for this feedback. It seems to have something to do with the gtklook and an incompatibility to the BWidget Notebook. I tried to fix this in the new version. If this does not work try to run the application with:
./dgHelpBrowser.kit -fontfix
and tell if this works
ABU 2005-06-07:
It cannot work on my Win-XP (equipped with activeTcl 8.4.4) . Every time I run dgHelpBrowser.kit, I get the following fatal error:
integer value too large to represent while executing "read $fp [file size $name]" (procedure "::snitbrowser::Snit_method_ReadFile" line 33) ...
DDG: And what occurs if you just use the recent tclkit from JCW [L2 ]. This is a more natural choice to run starkits. An it is easy to stay up to date with TclTk using one single file.
ABU: Thanks ! After downloading tclkit (built on tcl 8.4.9) problem has disappeared. dghelpBrowser is a real jewel .
MHo 2009-07-14: The problems noted above, or at least similar ones, persist. The .kit runs only with tclkit, not with activetcl 8.4.19 or 8.5.7....
DDG Unfortunately the tkhtml-library build into dgHelpBrowser is not compatible with the ActiveTcl-distros. If Tcl/Tk8.6b2 appear I will give the hv3 widget: http://tkhtml.tcl.tk/hv3_widget.html or a pure Tcl-library a try.
CliC 2011-01-05 Home page link at top is a 404. Is this package still being developed?
JOB - 2016-10-01 20:43:00
The HelpViewer - based on Tkhtml2.0 is a similar approach and is actually working well with tcl/tk 8.6.