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Help system in pure e4 application [message #1699736]

Fri, 26 June 2015 09:43

Peter Kullmann

Messages: 240
Registered: July 2009

Senior Member

The eclipse help system is still bound to the old workbench and cannot be used in a pure e4 application. For the purpose of an rcp app we just needed a way to display the help application in a separate browser. This is easy to accomplish in a pure e4 app. Here is how:

I startet with a pure e4 rcp app based on the features org.eclipse.e4.rcp, o.e.emf.common and o.e.emf.ecore.

In order to use the help app I had to add the following bundles:

         org.eclipse.help
         org.eclipse.help.webapp
         org.eclipse.help.base
         org.apache.lucene.analysis
         org.apache.lucene.core
         org.eclipse.core.net
         org.eclipse.equinox.security
         org.eclipse.equinox.security.macosx (for macosx only)
         javax.servlet
         javax.servlet.jsp
         javax.el
         org.eclipse.equinox.http.registry
         org.eclipse.equinox.jsp.jasper.registry
         org.eclipse.equinox.jsp.jasper
         org.apache.jasper.glassfish
         org.eclipse.equinox.http.jetty
         org.eclipse.equinox.http.servlet
         org.eclipse.jetty.continuation
         org.eclipse.jetty.http
         org.eclipse.jetty.io
         org.eclipse.jetty.security
         org.eclipse.jetty.server
         org.eclipse.jetty.servlet
         org.eclipse.jetty.util

None of these have dependencies to org.eclipse.ui or any other 3.x stuff.

The Help Contents menu item is handled by the following:


package ch.arenae.anm.handler;

import org.eclipse.e4.core.di.annotations.Execute;
import org.eclipse.help.internal.base.BaseHelpSystem;
import org.eclipse.help.internal.server.WebappManager;

public class HelpContentsHandler {
    @Execute
    public void execute() throws Exception {
        BaseHelpSystem.ensureWebappRunning();
        String helpURL = "http://" //$NON-NLS-1$
                + WebappManager.getHost() + ":" //$NON-NLS-1$
                + WebappManager.getPort() + "/help/index.jsp"; //$NON-NLS-1$
        BaseHelpSystem.getHelpBrowser(true).displayURL(helpURL);
    }

}

For us, this is enough. But I think it could be easily enhanced to open a specific topic.

HTH
Peter

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Re: Help system in pure e4 application [message #1700113 is a reply to message #1699736]

Tue, 30 June 2015 08:39

Michel Simeon

Messages: 128
Registered: December 2009

Senior Member

Thank you for this very interesting post. Could you go one step further and clarify the nature of your so-called help system. In Eclipse 3 I have an help system made of xml and html files, whereas your example refers to 'index.jsp'.

Thanks for your help
MS

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Re: Help system in pure e4 application [message #1700128 is a reply to message #1700113]

Tue, 30 June 2015 10:37

Peter Kullmann

Messages: 240
Registered: July 2009

Senior Member

It's the same system as in eclipse 3.x. It serves the help content contributed through the extension points org.eclipse.help.toc and org.eclipse.help.contexts. The help system is a web application with index.jsp as an entry point (this is unchanged from eclipse 3.x).

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Re: Help system in pure e4 application [message #1700299 is a reply to message #1700128]

Wed, 01 July 2015 14:37

Michel Simeon

Messages: 128
Registered: December 2009

Senior Member

Thank for the quick feed-back. I'll try it out !!!

MS

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Re: Help system in pure e4 application [message #1700477 is a reply to message #1700299]

Thu, 02 July 2015 19:29

Ralf Heydenreich

Messages: 186
Registered: July 2009

Senior Member

Am 01.07.2015 um 16:37 schrieb Michel Simeon:
> Thank for the quick feed-back. I'll try it out !!!
>
> MS

Hi all,
just for completeness: There are some bug reports regarding the new
EHelpService:

- https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=458829
- https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=457391
- https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=445600

The bugs are closed, but I think these are only some workarounds.
Personally I prefer also a "plain" E4 solution. But this could be a very
time consuming process since you have to re-implement the whole help
system. IIRC there was a proposal for this which stated the use of
docbook as source for the help files (but I can't find it anywhere).
As I also need a clean solution for this problem I could imagine to take
part on the discussion for it.

Greets,
Ralf.

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