I've gotten utterly flummoxed in trying to enable the search facility in the help system. To start, there seem to be two help systems with an unclear relationship between them: SuSE Help and the KDE Help Center. If I click on the "lifesaver" I get a window whose title is "KDE Help Center" but whose text has the title "SuSE Help Center". There seem to be several related packages: susehelp, susehelp_en, kdebase3, and kdebase3-SuSE. I can't figure out how those relate to each other either. I had the search function working before I installed KDE 3.2. I've since then reverted to KDE 3.1.4 because of all my problems with 3.2, but I haven't gotten the search function to work again, at least not as an ordinary user. The "Build Search Index" function of the KDE Help Center can be gotten to by clicking on Search and then on Create Search Index. But I can't find any explanation of the "Build Search Index" window, and clicking "OK" there causes an abortive attempt to build an index. Looking at the details I see that htdig has been called but apparently with an empty argument. There's a place to specify an index directory but I have no idea what that directory should be or contain, or even it it's an input or an output. To add to the confusion, if I log in as root I can in fact build the search index, though it's still missing a number of pieces. An extra level of confusion is caused by the fact that the help can be accessed either through the normal interface or through a web interface, which requires apache. However, the indexing problems seem to be independent of which interface is used. Explanations or pointers to relevant documentation or configuration files would be much appreciated. Paul Abrahams
The Monday 2004-02-16 at 14:30 -0500, Paul W. Abrahams wrote:
An extra level of confusion is caused by the fact that the help can be accessed either through the normal interface or through a web interface, which requires apache. However, the indexing problems seem to be independent of which interface is used.
This index is built with "susehelpindex": Usage: susehelpindex [options] Options: --force Recreate all index files --lang <lang> Set language for which the indices are created. (Default: en) --show Only show status of indices. --verbose Show verbose information when creating index files. --dryrun Don't actually create files. --help Show this text. Try "--force", and paste here the errors you get.
Explanations or pointers to relevant documentation or configuration files would be much appreciated.
Search for "susehelp" in "susehelp". :-p Sorry, couldn't help myself. I paste some here: |To make SuSE Help available in HTML format through a documentation |server, the inf2htm package must be installed. Instructions for |configuring the help system on an intranet documentation server can be |found in /usr/share/doc/packages/susehelp/README. -- Cheers, Carlos Robinson
On Monday 16 February 2004 7:39 pm, Carlos E. R. wrote:
This index is built with "susehelpindex":
Interesting. I ran susehelpindex as root (it won't run otherwise), and it created indices for 19 documents. Nevertheless when I run susehelp as myself, the search button is greyed out and if I attempt again to recreate the index I get what I got earlier: an indication that htdig was called with an empty argument . So it seems that the index is indeed being created but it's not visible to susehelp when I call it. And I still couldn't do searching. I also tried logging in as a new user and got yet a different result. I had to create an index as *that* user, and according to the creation log, the attempt failed. (The default index directory isn't world-writable.) Yet after that I was able to do searching (as that new user). So there seems to be some per-user information that's getting in the way -- and no documentation I can find to tell me what that might be or to explain how the process of creating a search index is organized. Alas, knowing how htdig works isn't sufficient. Paul Abrahams
I seem to have made some progress. I deleted the file ~/.kde/share/config/khelpcenterrc. I then went back to help and tried to search again. This time I was able to create an index. I think my problems were caused largely by an erroneous configuration file created when I was running KDE 3.2. However, it does seem that creating indices with susehelpindex is insufficient because the user-level helps don't see those indices for some reason. Paul Abrahams
The Monday 2004-02-16 at 23:22 -0500, Paul W. Abrahams wrote:
I seem to have made some progress. I deleted the file ~/.kde/share/config/khelpcenterrc. I then went back to help and tried to search again. This time I was able to create an index. I think my problems were caused largely by an erroneous configuration file created when I was running KDE 3.2. However, it does seem that creating indices with susehelpindex is insufficient because the user-level helps don't see those indices for some reason.
I can not duplicate your results because I use SuSE 8.2, and mostly with gnome - that's why I know about 'susehelpindex'; by the way, it must be run by root. I also mentioned on another threads that you need some settings: /etc/sysconfig/susehelp: DOC_HOST="yourhost.yourdmain" DOC_ALLOW="localhost .yourdomain" DOC_AUTOINDEX="yes" with that, and after running suseconfig, "susehelp" should run even in text mode on a console - at least, up to SuSE 8.2, with differences on each version, including different bugs: it has never worked flawlessly. Interestingly, you can use one computer as the documentation server, and access it from another. -- Cheers, Carlos Robinson
On Tuesday 17 February 2004 3:33 pm, Carlos E. R. wrote:
I can not duplicate your results because I use SuSE 8.2, and mostly with gnome - that's why I know about 'susehelpindex'; by the way, it must be run by root. I also mentioned on another threads that you need some settings:
/etc/sysconfig/susehelp: DOC_HOST="yourhost.yourdmain" DOC_ALLOW="localhost .yourdomain" DOC_AUTOINDEX="yes"
with that, and after running suseconfig, "susehelp" should run even in text mode on a console - at least, up to SuSE 8.2, with differences on each version, including different bugs: it has never worked flawlessly.
The problem I encountered wasn't in getting susehelp to run -- it was in getting the search function to work. As I mentioned in a previous post, the interdependencies of susehelp and KDE help are mysterious; if you're running gnome, that adds another complication. Paul Abrahams
The Tuesday 2004-02-17 at 20:47 -0500, Paul W. Abrahams wrote:
The problem I encountered wasn't in getting susehelp to run -- it was in getting the search function to work. As I mentioned in a previous post, the interdependencies of susehelp and KDE help are mysterious; if you're running gnome, that adds another complication.
I know; but I can not help you at all with the kde side. I can only try with the "standard" side, by it gnome or any other, except kde: for example, a text console and lynx. And, as you updated kde, that may compound the problem. -- Cheers, Carlos Robinson
participants (2)
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Carlos E. R.
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Paul W. Abrahams