help() does not check for chm file

[cjwhrh]

BPO	1025392
Nosy	@loewis, @rhettinger, @kbkaiser

^{Note: these values reflect the state of the issue at the time it was migrated and might not reflect the current state.}

Show more details

GitHub fields:

assignee = None
closed_at = <Date 2004-09-17.06:33:01.000>
created_at = <Date 2004-09-09.20:41:14.000>
labels = ['invalid', 'library']
title = 'help() does not check for chm file'
updated_at = <Date 2004-09-17.06:33:01.000>
user = 'https://bugs.python.org/cjwhrh'

bugs.python.org fields:

activity = <Date 2004-09-17.06:33:01.000>
actor = 'loewis'
assignee = 'none'
closed = True
closed_date = None
closer = None
components = ['Library (Lib)']
creation = <Date 2004-09-09.20:41:14.000>
creator = 'cjwhrh'
dependencies = []
files = []
hgrepos = []
issue_num = 1025392
keywords = []
message_count = 10.0
messages = ['22403', '22404', '22405', '22406', '22407', '22408', '22409', '22410', '22411', '22412']
nosy_count = 5.0
nosy_names = ['loewis', 'rhettinger', 'kbk', 'cjwhrh', 'quiver']
pr_nums = []
priority = 'normal'
resolution = 'not a bug'
stage = None
status = 'closed'
superseder = None
type = None
url = 'https://bugs.python.org/issue1025392'
versions = []

[cjwhrh]

Idle looks for the html docs

In the source package there are lots of .tex files,
must these
be converted to HTML, if so how?

Using Windows XP

[loewis]

Logged In: YES
user_id=21627

Why do you say IDLE looks for the html docs? On Windows, it
doesn't - it looks for the chm file instead.

[rhettinger]

Logged In: YES
user_id=80475

Martin, the IDLE help menu has four entries:

1. About IDLE -- brings up a Tk window
2. IDLE Help -- brings up another Tk window
3. Python Docs F1 -- browses http://www.python.org/doc/current/
4. Chm -- calls up the chm file

Colin, pressing F1 should take you to on-line html docs.
Normally windows users access the CHM option when they want
to browse documentation locally. I've never been able to
convert TeX files to HTML on Windows. Fortunately, there is
almost no need.

If this answers your question. please close the bug.

[quiver]

Logged In: YES
user_id=671362

Martin:

Why do you say IDLE looks for the html docs?

Start up an idle(or an interpreter), type help(), and type 'and'.
Then you can understand what Colin is trying to say.

  >>> help()
  ...(snip)
  help> and

If a PYTHONDOCS environ variable is given to the directory of
html files, the interpreter parses them and show the
document of 'and'.

Otherwise, you get the message:

Sorry, topic and keyword documentation is not available
because the Python
HTML documentation files could not be found. If you have
installed them,
please set the environment variable PYTHONDOCS to indicate
their location.

You can solve this problem by downloading html docs for
2.3.* from
http://www.python.org/doc/current/download.html, but you
can't for 2.4*.

[loewis]

Logged In: YES
user_id=21627

I see. This is not a bug in IDLE, though - press F1, or select
Help/Python Docs to see how IDLE does find the
documentation.

It is more a problem of the help() function, which does not
know about the chm file; changing the subject accordingly.

Notice that Python 2.4 has not been released yet, so there is
no official HTML tarball. A prerelease HTML tarball is available
from

http://www.python.org/dev/doc/python-docs-devel.tar.bz2

Raymond, what versin of IDLE are you looking at? In the one
shipped with 2.4a3 (IDLE 1.1a3), I see three menu entries: no
Chm entry, but the "Python Docs F1" entry brings up the chm
file.

[loewis]

Logged In: YES
user_id=21627

If anybody wants to tackle this issue: it is possible to
decompile the chm into html files. I propose the following
procedure:

hh -decompile c:\python24\doc\html c:\python24
\python24.chm

[quiver]

Logged In: YES
user_id=671362

Notice that Python 2.4 has not been released yet, so there
is
no official HTML tarball. A prerelease HTML tarball is
available
from
http://www.python.org/dev/doc/python-docs-devel.tar.bz2

It's my fault. I didn't know that.

Thanks, Martin.

[cjwhrh]

Logged In: YES
user_id=285587

Thanks Martin.

Also thanks to Raymond for his comments and to George for
setting out the problem more clearly.

Colin W.

[kbkaiser]

Logged In: YES
user_id=149084

It appears that Raymond customized his IDLE help to add
the chm entry.

On Windows, EditorWindow.__init__() will try to locate
the .chm file. If it fails, it will go out to python.org for
the html docs. F1/Python Docs uses os.startfile() to
access the .chm file or the python.org url.

[loewis]

Logged In: YES
user_id=21627

Assuming everybody agrees that the original issue is
resolved, I close this report.