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Access application help files in Internet Explorer Web Browsers

As an alternative to the Finder and the Terminal, you can use Internet Explorer to browse the file system. Just type in file://local and you will see all files, including all hidden files. You can enter application directories (the ones ending in .app) if you want to. If you have different partitions, you might want to use file://local/volumes to access them.

If you do this in Safari, it will open a Finder window. In Netscape, it doesn't do anything (robg's note: In Netscape products, it should work with three slashes, as in file:///Applications).

I use this feature to access help files. I go to the application's folder, and search for a help folder. Most help files are plain HTML, so just click on one, and suddenly you can view the help files -- this is superfast compared to the Help Center.

[robg adds: We've run hints on browsing local files before, but I thought using the browser to both browse and open the help files was a unique concept.]

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Help Viewer files aren't pure HTML
Authored by: a1291762 on Jun 16, '03 06:52:50PM

You might notice problems with some of the links when viewing help files in a browser. There are some help-viewer extensions to HTML that the help files use. I can't think of any off the top of my head but they're there.

Project Builder can also display Help Viewer's HTML files.



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Access application help files in Internet Explorer
Authored by: leebennett on Jun 16, '03 09:24:22PM

someone please explain how this tip is helpful to anyone who's a true apple supporter? i haven't (nor do i plan to) launched netscape in months. IE is going bye-bye, and using this tip with safari opens a plain finder window that does not reveal hidden files.



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Access application help files in Internet Explorer
Authored by: vaag on Jun 17, '03 05:09:55AM

>IE is going bye-bye, and using this tip with safari opens a
>plain finder window that does not reveal hidden files.

It used to work with previous versions of Safari, it still does with OmniWeb 4.5



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'volumes' should have a capital 'V'
Authored by: owain_vaughan on Jun 17, '03 06:45:28AM

I dread the day when I see a shell script written by an HFS fan that begins:

#!/Bin/SH

:)



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Access application help files in Internet Explorer
Authored by: idle on Jun 18, '03 05:03:42PM

first, typing file://local doesn't get you the local disk. It does, but not BECAUSE you typed in local. you only need to type in file:/// for the root directory. It just so happens that if you enter a name that doesn't exist, IE will display the root directory. If you type file://ihatemicrosoft, you will still get the root directory of your local disk. This behaviour is in Safari as well.

The file:/// is by design for any browser. Safari displays differently and brings up a Finder window. This is non-standard.

second, the downside to the way Finder works is that it doesn't enforce case sensitivity. This filters through to IE, Safari, and most likely all other browsers.

This is a huge bug that Apple have yet to fix.



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