Re: Apple help

On Jan 28, 2005, at 12:11, Roger Binns wrote:

> According to the doc that is all that is necessary to make a  
> non-localized help book.  To use it you can do the following:
>
>   import Carbon.AH
>   Carbon.AH.AHGotoPage(None, "file:///path/to/welcome.htm", None)
>
> That will correctly bring up the help.  However the search function  
> won't work, and it thinks the book title is (null).  (So what exactly  
> was the point of the meta tag above then?  Why does it ignore the  
> index it created?)

I got this working as well. I was able to put in keywords and a  
description and recreated the index file. The indexing tool detected  
the keywords and description fine, but when I searched the help, it  
still did nothing. I believe this means that the help HAS to be  
registered for the search to work properly - it's probably also the  
reason that null is showing up, since it doesn't know what book to  
search (kind of dumb if you ask me - the idx file is right there).

> Presumably some pieces are missing.  Maybe you have to use the  
> Carbon.AH.AHRegisterHelpBook function (I couldn't find any parameter  
> that would not give an error).  There is probably a property list file  
> that should be somewhere although the online documentation doesn't say  
> where (in that directory, in a parent directory, somewhere else?).  It  
> also doesn't say how to create a property list from the command line  
> even if I knew where to put it, nor what it actually needs to contain.

The property list they speak of is set within the Info.plist that comes  
with bundled applications. If I am not mistaken, this needs to be set  
in the build script. I put this in but as you will read below, I never  
got a chance to test it. So it seems that unfortunately, to tie in  
standalone help without a bundle doesn't seem like a possibility.

> Note that I am trying to create a standalone non-localized help book  
> that is not part of any other bundle or even of BitPim, and do so  
> entirely from the command line.

Anyways, on trying to get this to work, I wanted to perform a build and  
put the help inside. Unfortunately, I couldn't get the build script  
working, even before playing around with the help. I have all of the  
necessary libraries and running bp.py works without a hitch. Whenever I  
use makedist.py or write my own setup script with py2app, I get the  
following error. I tried to look online to see what it could be, but  
after searching various malling-lists, there was only one case similar  
to my error. The individual had mentioned that he had an image file in  
his source directory that was causing problems. I could did build  
superdoodle.py which comes with py2app, and that builds just perfectly.  
Any clues? Maybe it is just my system.

Traceback (most recent call last):
   File "makedist.py", line 430, in ?
     macbuild()
   File "makedist.py", line 409, in macbuild
     setup( data_files = resources(), options = opts,  app = app,  
script_args = ("py2app",) )
   File  
"/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.3/lib/ 
python2.3/distutils/core.py", line 149, in setup
     dist.run_commands()
   File  
"/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.3/lib/ 
python2.3/distutils/dist.py", line 907, in run_commands
     self.run_command(cmd)
   File  
"/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.3/lib/ 
python2.3/distutils/dist.py", line 927, in run_command
     cmd_obj.run()
   File "/purelib/py2app/py2app/build_app.py", line 281, in run
   File "/purelib/py2app/py2app/build_app.py", line 366, in _run
   File "/purelib/py2app/py2app/build_app.py", line 414, in run_normal
   File "/purelib/py2app/py2app/build_app.py", line 329, in  
get_modulefinder
   File "/purelib/py2app/modulegraph/find_modules.py", line 241, in  
find_modules
   File "/purelib/py2app/modulegraph/find_modules.py", line 163, in  
find_needed_modules
   File "/purelib/py2app/modulegraph/modulegraph.py", line 236, in  
run_script
   File "/purelib/py2app/modulegraph/modulegraph.py", line 456, in  
scan_code
   File "/purelib/py2app/modulegraph/modulegraph.py", line 404, in  
_safe_import_hook
   File "/purelib/py2app/modulegraph/modulegraph.py", line 246, in  
import_hook
   File "/purelib/py2app/modulegraph/modulegraph.py", line 306, in  
load_tail
   File "/purelib/py2app/modulegraph/modulegraph.py", line 362, in  
import_module
   File "/purelib/py2app/modulegraph/modulegraph.py", line 397, in  
load_module
   File "/purelib/py2app/modulegraph/modulegraph.py", line 456, in  
scan_code
   File "/purelib/py2app/modulegraph/modulegraph.py", line 404, in  
_safe_import_hook
   File "/purelib/py2app/modulegraph/modulegraph.py", line 245, in  
import_hook
   File "/purelib/py2app/modulegraph/modulegraph.py", line 291, in  
find_head_package
   File "/purelib/py2app/modulegraph/modulegraph.py", line 362, in  
import_module
   File "/purelib/py2app/modulegraph/modulegraph.py", line 397, in  
load_module
   File "/purelib/py2app/modulegraph/modulegraph.py", line 456, in  
scan_code
   File "/purelib/py2app/modulegraph/modulegraph.py", line 404, in  
_safe_import_hook
   File "/purelib/py2app/modulegraph/modulegraph.py", line 245, in  
import_hook
   File "/purelib/py2app/modulegraph/modulegraph.py", line 284, in  
find_head_package
   File "/purelib/py2app/modulegraph/modulegraph.py", line 362, in  
import_module
   File "/purelib/py2app/modulegraph/modulegraph.py", line 376, in  
load_module
TypeError: compile() expected string without null bytes

Thanks,

Adit



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