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Use a browser as dedicated html help viewer Web Browsers
After seeing the recent hint about browsing local disks to view html help files with a web browser, I'd like to suggest that readers could go a step further by turning one of the excellent free browsers available for OS X into a dedicated help viewer. I've started doing this with Navigator / Chimera / Camino, so that I have a way to prevent HTML help (like that provided for most Adobe apps) from hijacking my default browser. I've done this by seeking out the index pages of the help docs I want to include, and bookmarking them in Camino. Note that some of these pages are hidden inside application packages and you may not be able to access them by navigating with the browser. In these cases, you will need to Control-click on the package in the Finder, choose 'Open Package Contents' from the contextual menu, locate the required help page, and drag it manually into the browser window. If the business of hunting down the help pages for yourself is too intimidating, simply make the browser you've selected as your help viewer the default browser temporarily, launch each of the apps whose help you want to include, call up the help, and bookmark the page when the browser comes to the front.

An alternative to simply bookmarking help pages is to create your own HTML page with links to the desired help, and make that the browser's default home page. This is what I've done with Camino and it works really well. Using a browser in this way allows you to fine tune window size and other display settings specifically for viewing help files; your default browser can be left the way you like it for browsing the web, and won't have it's 'history' bloated by the dozens of help pages you were looking at while you tried to track down the key combo for creating perspective distortions in Illustrator.

Some help files intended for viewing in Apple's hideously sluggish Help Viewer can also be viewed like this, but may not function correctly. For the record, my Camino personalised help viewer links me to help files for Illustrator, InDesign, Photoshop, LiveMotion, Revolution, Snak and File Buddy, with additional links and bookmarks that lead directly to specific sections of the help docs. Go for it. It's a cinch to set up, and a lot nicer than forcing your default browser to moonlight as a help viewer.
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Not about Default Browser
Authored by: jonahlee on Jun 19, '03 11:10:05AM

Thanks for the hint, for me this wouldn't be about snagging the default browser, instead of Adobe's seeming insistance on using Internet Explorer to read their help files in. I have Camino as my default browser but when I open After Effects help it opens Internet Explorer, which I have on my computer only to test web sites (pretty useless now since it is no longer being developed).

---
- Jonah Lee



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Not about Default Browser
Authored by: won on Jun 19, '03 03:02:52PM
Here's what'cha do.

As suggested, navigate to the help files inside of Illustrator's package.

Illustrator's Help "index" page is called help.html. If you've not changed your directory structure or installed Illustrator elsewhere, it should be here:
/Applications/Adobe Illustrator 10.0.3/Adobe Illustrator 10/ here's where you need to show package contents /Help/help.html
Get Info on that file and change it's Open With property from Explorer to whatever you'd like. I chose Safari.

Bingo! Illustrator's help now launches in Safari. AFAIK, you don't have to change any of the other files referenced in that folder, nor do you have to quit Illustrator while you're making this change.



won

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Not about Default Browser
Authored by: mahakali on Jun 19, '03 06:30:45PM
You can change the file's creator to nothing. OS X will use extension to determine which app to use and if your default browser is Safari then it'll open in Safari. You can use applescript to change a dropped file's creator to generic "????":
on open (iFiles)
  tell application "Finder"
    set iFiles to iFiles as alias
    display dialog "are you sure you want to ¬
      change file's type/creator to none?" ¬
      buttons {"yes!", "no"} default button 1 ¬
      with icon 2
		
    if the button returned of the result is "yes!" then
      set the creator type of iFiles to "????"
    end if
  end tell
end open
Save it as an application somewhere.

[ Reply to This | # ]
Use a browser as dedicated html help viewer
Authored by: Welles Goodrich on Jun 20, '03 09:45:36AM

I never thought about resolving this issue until this tip. Thanks for that!

However I took a slightly different approach which was simpler and so far doesn't seem to have any downside. I found the help folder in Photoshop (doesn't require examining the package contents as you do in Illustrator) highlighted one of the .html files and in Get Info changed the default application in Open With to Safari after which I then just hit the 'use this application to open all documents like this' and that was all I needed.



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Use a browser as dedicated html help viewer
Authored by: encro on Jun 21, '03 05:39:52PM

The reason certain applications are hijacking the system is because the .html files have resource forks (unneeded in OS X). If you delete the resource fork the .html pages will then use your system default browser.



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