GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 158463
Help System (using default Web Browser) doesn't work
Last modified: 2007-04-27 10:42:37 UTC
The HTML help files are installed properly. In "preferences" it's impossible to point to the browser used. It only asks to mark to use a web browser to see the help topics. I understand that in previous versions of Gimp, there was a possibility to tell Gimp which browser you're using. This problem appeared quite a few times in Yahoo's Win-Gimp users group, and nobody seems to know what to do.
In Windows, GIMP always uses the system default browser. You can make a browser the system default by editing its Preferences (in the browser, not in GIMP). If you don't want to do this, then as far as I know there is currently no solution.
Usually, the "system default borwser" setup is more or less broken on Windows. Explicitly setting it helps, even when everything "seems" to be ok.
So this is basically a matter of documenting the fact that the system default browser is used and should be configured? I was under the impression that it is safe to assume that this is the case for almost all Windows installations.
If Windows was designed to guarantee this level of consistency, there would be much less to worry about this platform in general.
What do you suggest as a workaround then? Should we include a preference option that allows to specify a command like we do for non-Win32 systems?
I wish I could figure out what is the proper workaround. Maybe the inclusion of the preference option, will resolve the problem. I never used an older version of Gimp (prior to the 2.05 one), but those who did,reported in Yahoo's win-Gimp discussion group, that they did not have that problem with reaching the help files from within Gimp and at least the previous versions had the preference option to specify the path for the browser used. Another hint that might help, when I tell Gimp (in Preferences) to use its internal browser,the following error message pops-up: "Could not find the Gimp Help Browser procedure. It probably was not compiled because you don't have GtkHtml2 installed", and it changes to using my web browser. So if something could be done to let the end user to be able to use the internal browsing capabilitis, may solve this inconvenience. Unfortunatly, I have no programming knowledge so I can use only a guess. Probably you guys are all using non-Windows operating systems and at least are able to compile your own executables. I can only download the final- compiled version from Jernej Simoncic's site. At least I can confirm that it is a real pleasure to use Gimp!
The browser I'm using (MS Internet Explorer ver 6.02) is *the system default browser* - double checked it. I even tried using the new Mozilla Firefox (VERSION 2.0)and made it the default system browser -again, double checked it. But it was still impossible to reach the Help files from within the Gimp. So it must be something in Gimp or in the Windows executable downloaded from Jernej Simoncic's site.
The preference option has been removed for Win32 builds since it isn't used at all by the Win32 implementation of the webbrowser plug-in.
I wonder, maybe the workaround might be converting the HTML help files, to another format, maybe CHM or HLP. Again, I'm suggesting this only as a guess. If this is possible, maybe something in the Gimp's code, must be changed too.
Certainly introducing a whole new file format is not an option. This is just a matter of configuring a web browser to use. This can't be that difficult even on a Wn32 system.
Are the help files for Gimp 2.0.5 available anywhere on the web? Getting the help system to work (here, using either IE or Firefox browsers, Win XP) is a bit too complicated for me to understand :( Any ideas on how to fix this would be greatly appreciated.
I don't see how we could possibly make this any simpler as it currently is. But if your system is just too screwed up, why don't you read the help online at http://docs.gimp.org/ ?
*** Bug 161974 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
I suggest what we do is to check if libgtkhtml2 can be ported to Win32 and if that's possible, we should include the internal helpbrowser with the Win32 installer and make the internal helpbrowser the default for Win32 just as we do for other platforms.
I am changing the summary of this report to the one that was used to report bug #161974. It is IMO a better description of the problem.
on comments 12,14: I think it's a bit too easy to dismiss this as a "screwed up system". Every other program I use that doesn't use GTK, has no problems whatsoever finding and launching the default browser and opening a page. Therefore my conclusion is that it is indeed some part of GTK(see #14) that it is incompatible with the way M$ Windows handles these kind of calls.
Well, help works and worked fine for me on any of my Win32 systems. And AFAIK the Win32 help plug-ins doesn't use any gtk+ functions to start the default browser. I'm not surprised that something this simple fails on Win32, but still hope there is an easy explanation for this :) I got pretty far ewith my libgtkhtml build, only a - apparently known - linker error occurs. Will try again this evening.
Dear Michael, this sounds really promising. Do you know which system call is used in the Gimp to show the default browser? What kind of Win32 OS are you using? Grtz, Jorrit
GTK+ isn't involved at all here. The GIMP webbrowser plug-in uses Win32 API to call the webbrowser. Jorrit, perhaps you should investigate a little before making such comments.
I can confirm this and also that many other users report this problem in various places. My own system is quite freshly installed - I don't think there was much opportunity to screw up anything regarding the system default browser before I installed gimp 2.2 and help 2.0.6. I didn't have the problem with gimp 2.05 and help 2.03. I may add that I do have a similar problem with the media-keys of my logitech keyboard. It doesn't seem to want to use firefox as default browser allthough its set up as such. This problem has existed ever since, also in times when gimp 2.05 properly loaded the help files into firefox. Best Rainer
It seems pretty clear that this is a bug in the operating system then that should be reported against the vendor of that very system. After all you paid for it so your primary source of support should be from Redmond. Can you please add a link to the bug report you filed against Microsoft Windows so that we are uptodate about any progress with regard to fixing that problem in the operating system? Thanks for you help.
Hi, I had the same problem and the solution is easy, you have to download the help files. They are not included in the installer
I tried GIMP 2.2.3 (from the default installer) on a Win XP system a few times ago and the webbrowser plug-in reproducibly crashed when trying to call the webbrowser to show the help pages :(
That should have read "... a few days ago.".
Well on my computer i got the same problem but it's not one of my web browser that opens but my source editor. I'm on WinXp Fam no SR2, and when i double click on an HTML file it opens itself in IE... But with Gimp it opens itself in Crimson Editor. I cannot test GIMP's web help plugin, i cannot find it and i dunno how to instal a plug in ... Semms that i'm to new in GIMP's world... Any help is welcomed, about how to make this web help work or how to find/install a plugin. my mail is jpsiffert at gmx dot fr
Did anyone ask the Crimson authors why this can happen?
I don't know what's going on, but here are some thoughts. On Windows, the help is invoked using the command ShellExecute (HWND_DESKTOP, "open", url, NULL, NULL, SW_SHOWNORMAL) According to the Windows API docs, ShellExecute with "open" expects the next argument to be a file for the shell to execute or open. But when GIMP runs this command, the "url" argument is typically something like \path\to\help\ch03.html#gimp-toolbox-introduction This is not the name of a file, and so Windows may not understand how to open it. From my understanding of the API docs, we should probably be using a command more like ShellExecute (HWND_DESKTOP, "open", Browser, url, NULL, SW_SHOWNORMAL) This runs the program "Browser" with argument "url". Of course being basically clueless about Windows, I may be way off the mark in all of this.
Sorry, but we are certainly not passing something like \path\to\help\ch03.html#gimp-toolbox-introduction to the webbrowser plug-in. What get's passed is a valid URI like file:///usr/local/share/gimp/2.0/help/en/index.html
For the records: something like file:///c:/Programme/GIMP-2.2/share/gimp/2.0/help/de/ch03.html#gimp-toolbox-introduction works fine on Win32
As you said Michael it works but is it the intention of gimp to put this string in the win explorer bar to get the help, if so there is no need for a help system in gimp for win. Anyway this problem should be solved, I'm as a newbie in using gimp its hard to do it without a proper help system. Not the web-browser is function nor the internal browser of gimp and thats really a bit frustating.
*** Bug 168649 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
While an uri like "file:///c:/home/index.html" works fine in Windows2000, it does not seem to work with Windows XP SP2, combined with ShellExecute. However, what _does_ work in both OSes, is the use of uri="c:/home/index.html" or uri="c:/home/index.html#asection". Just my 2 pennies. Ed.
Do you have any evidence (e.g. a test program) that shows this behaviour? I'm using XP SP2, and the help works fine.
If comment #32 is right, it would be trivial to change the webbrowser plug-in to use this syntax for local files.
I've used a little test program to find out about ShellExecute's peculiarities. It looks to me like XP changed behaviour after some bugfix. This is what I found out: 1. When using ShellExecute with "open", only this notation "c:/home/index.html" seems to work. 2. When using NULL instead of "open", the notations "file:///c:/home/index.html" as well as "c:/home/index.html#asection" seem to work, however, the name tag (#asection) is ignored. Here's the source of my program, which I compiled with cygwin: #include <windows.h> int main(int argc, char **argv) { HINSTANCE l_return; char *uri = "file:///c:/home/index.html#asection"; l_return = ShellExecute (HWND_DESKTOP, NULL, uri, NULL, NULL, SW_SHOWNORMAL); printf("Return value: %d\n", l_return); return 0; }
Correction of typo in my last comment #35: In 2. replace "c:/home/index.html#asection" with "file:///c:/home/index.html#asection"
The idea of the web-browser plug-in is that it handles URLs. The plug-in is not only used by the Help system but also to give access to online resources like for example the URLs that appear in the "Xtns->Help->The GIMP Online" menu.
I'm using WinXP/SP2, and when I click the "Help" button, it opens an option box asking me where I want to move "index.html"; when I close that box, it opens a second box asking where I want to copy "index.html". After I close the second box, it then opens my default browser and displays the helpfiles. Using latest versions of GIMP(2.2.4)/Help files, downloaded today, 3/27/2005.
Hi, I'm on 2.2.6, help 2.07 now, and this is still there... please :-) Best .r.
This will have to be researched by someone who is affected by the problem - so far, all people who probably would know what the problem might be if they saw it themselves are unaffected... maybe there is some kind of connection (system maintenance, general usage, ...)
I also experience the inability to use either the default browser (Internet Explorer 6) or the internal help from GIMP with WinXP SP2. Internal help just reports "Could not find GIMP help browser. The GIMP help browser plug-in appears to be missing from your installation." When I tell it to use the default browser, help.exe calls webbrowser.exe, which then runs with the command line ["c:\program files\gimp\lib\gimp\2.0\plug-ins\webbrowser.exe" - gimp 9 7 -run 0], quits, and that's the end of any activity. Doing a bit of digging, running help.exe by itself posts the dialog "Unable To Locate Component. This application has failed to start because libgimp-2.0- 0.dll was not found. Re-installing the application may fix this problem." (I don't know why GIMP doesn't post an error dialog.) There were numerous other DLLs it didn't find, so I tried including "C:\Program Files\GIMP\bin" in the Path statement (environmental variable) and that took care of all the "file not found" messages. Now they both just run and quit pretty much immediately. I'll attach a SysInternals FileMon review of their activity in case it helps. As a workaround, I created a shortcut/bookmark in my QuickLaunch menu for general use pointing to C:\Program Files\GIMP\share\gimp\2.0\help\en\index.html (Of course you don't get the context sensitivity of GIMP-launched help.) Also, if I use file:///C:/Program Files/GIMP/share/gimp/2.0/help/en/index.html ...it works from IE6 or Windows Explorer.
Created attachment 46577 [details] Log of HELP.EXE and WEBBROWSER.EXE actions. Rename with .ZIP extension.
...posted as a zip format file.
What I have found is that the installation of the netware client definitely screws up the accessibility of the help files.
Brian, please tell the people from Novell about this problem then.
Hi, The help system of gimp not opening. This is still a problem Windows XP SP2 with novell client 4.90.2.20040617 Gimp 2.2.6 and the newest gtk and help system. If you click on help the first time gimp is started, gimp goes into working for roughly a second and then continues. The external browser is not opened. You suggested that there is no default browser set. This is not true. Firefox is set, it opens on web addresses as well when clicking on *.html files. I tried to set # Sets the external web browser to be used. This can be an absolute path or # the name of an executable to search for in the user's PATH. If the command # contains '%s' it will be replaced with the URL, else the URL will be # appended to the command with a space separating the two. This is a single # filename. # # (web-browser "mozilla %s") (web-browser "c:/Programme/Mozilla Firefox/firefox.exe '%s'") (this is the exact path) in gimprc. but that does not help either. Please: This is a problem for many Windows XP users who are using the files provided in the web. Something is wrong with the gimp code. Please help. Thanks Othmar Marti Uni Ulm
An encouraging update -- while the web browser still isn't loaded from Gimp for Windows when configured to do so (in my case, IE6 SP2), the internal help browser is now functional as of GIMP 2.2.8 and GTK+ 2.6.8. A hearty thanks to all concerned!
Let's close this as FIXED then?
Yes. The problem with the Novell Netware client has been reported to Novell, btw: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gimpwin-users/message/16616
*** Bug 343946 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** Bug 385020 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***