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Context-sensitive help on wizard dialogs: sometimes appears, sometimes not [message #475420]

Tue, 24 March 2009 19:05

Mike Yawn

Messages: 50
Registered: July 2009

Member

I have context sensitive help pages assigned to each page of a
multi-page wizard dialog.

Sometimes the wizard pages will appear when the (?) is clicked, and
other times they do not. When they do not appear, there doesn't seem
to be any indication of a problem (nothing written to log file) -- it's
just as if there was no help for that page.

I haven't yet figured out exactly what the pattern is. However, a few
things I've noticed:

- If a help page appears fine, and I close it, and then go to the next
page in the wizard -- if I hit 'Back' to return to the page and try to
display the help again, it frequently does not appear.
- If a file page does not appear, and I go to a previous page in the
wizard and bring up help there, and then hit Next >, then the help
page for the next dialog page (which couldn't be brought up using the
(?) button) will be loaded when navigating to the page.

So there seems to be some weird connection between wizard navigation and
help page loading that is different than just loading the help for the
"current" wizard page.

Any ideas?
Thanks,
Mike

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Re: Context-sensitive help on wizard dialogs: sometimes appears, sometimes not [message #475423 is a reply to message #475420]

Tue, 24 March 2009 20:27

Chris Goldthorpe

Messages: 815
Registered: July 2009

Senior Member

Can you reproduce this in standard Eclipse dialogs such as the new
project wizard? If so can you describe the steps to reproduce , it's
hard to tell what's happening without knowing how your wizard is coded.

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Re: Context-sensitive help on wizard dialogs: sometimes appears, sometimes not [message #475425 is a reply to message #475423]

Tue, 24 March 2009 21:31

Mike Yawn

Messages: 50
Registered: July 2009

Member

Chris Goldthorpe wrote:
> Can you reproduce this in standard Eclipse dialogs such as the new
> project wizard? If so can you describe the steps to reproduce , it's
> hard to tell what's happening without knowing how your wizard is coded.

Well, I was going to say "no" , but then I actually did see something
similar. And it has the same randomness to the result that I saw in my
own wizards.

(This is on 3.3.2 M20080221-1800 build)

If I open the Eclipse New Project Wizard, and open context sensitive
help, the displayed page begins with "This wizard helps you create a new
Java Project". If I enter a project name and hit Next, the same help
text is displayed. If I then hit Back to return to the first page of
the wizard, the help text normally stays the same.

But occasionally, when hitting Back, I get a page that simply says
"Opens a creation wizard".

So I think this is the same root cause -- there is somehow more than one
possible help destination associated with this page. (I think in my
case, there is no second destination, so in cases where the New Project
Wizard shows "Opens a creation wizard", my wizard just shows no help.

This doesn't happen often with the Java project wizard, and it may be
necessary to open and close the help sidebar a few times to get the
behavior to show up, but I've seen in three of four times now.

Can you reproduce this behavior? Have any ideas about it?

Thanks,
Mike

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Re: Context-sensitive help on wizard dialogs: sometimes appears, sometimes not [message #475427 is a reply to message #475425]

Tue, 24 March 2009 23:00

Mike Yawn

Messages: 50
Registered: July 2009

Member

Mike Yawn wrote:
> Chris Goldthorpe wrote:
>> Can you reproduce this in standard Eclipse dialogs such as the new
>> project wizard? If so can you describe the steps to reproduce , it's
>> hard to tell what's happening without knowing how your wizard is coded.
>
> Well, I was going to say "no" , but then I actually did see something
> similar. And it has the same randomness to the result that I saw in my
> own wizards.
>
> (This is on 3.3.2 M20080221-1800 build)
>
> If I open the Eclipse New Project Wizard, and open context sensitive
> help, the displayed page begins with "This wizard helps you create a new
> Java Project". If I enter a project name and hit Next, the same help
> text is displayed. If I then hit Back to return to the first page of
> the wizard, the help text normally stays the same.
>
> But occasionally, when hitting Back, I get a page that simply says
> "Opens a creation wizard".
>
> So I think this is the same root cause -- there is somehow more than one
> possible help destination associated with this page. (I think in my
> case, there is no second destination, so in cases where the New Project
> Wizard shows "Opens a creation wizard", my wizard just shows no help.
>
> This doesn't happen often with the Java project wizard, and it may be
> necessary to open and close the help sidebar a few times to get the
> behavior to show up, but I've seen in three of four times now.
>
> Can you reproduce this behavior? Have any ideas about it?
>
> Thanks,
> Mike

Figured this out with pointers from Chris -- documenting here for the
benefit of others who might see similar behavior. I was attaching help
to my wizard pages. As long as any field I added to the page had
focus, the help was displayed fine. But if focus was on the Back or
Next items on the button bar, help would not be displayed -- I guess
those are part of the 'container', and not part of the page for which
help was available.

Mike

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