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<title>Standalone help</title>
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<body>
<h2>Standalone help</h2>
<p>If you are creating an application that is not based on
the Eclipse framework, you can still use the Eclipse help system. Your
application can package and install the stand-alone help system, a very small
version of Eclipse that has everything except the help system stripped out
of it. Then, your application can make API calls from its Help menu, or from UI
objects, to launch the help browser. The stand-alone help system has all the
features of the integrated help system, except workbench-integrated context help,
the help view, and active help. When an application is not Java based, or help is
required when the application is not running, it is possible to use stand-alone
help from a system shell, a shell script or a desktop shortcut and provide command
line options instead of calling Java APIs.</p>
<P>The stand-alone help system allows passing number of options that can be used to customize various aspects of the help system. The following options are supported:</P><UL>
<LI><B>-eclipsehome</B> <I>eclipseInstallPath</I> - specifies Eclipse
installation directory. This directory is a parent to "plugins" directory
and eclipse executable. The option must be provided, when current directory
from which the information center is launched, is
not the same as Eclipse installation directory.</LI>
<LI><B>-host</B> <I>helpServerHost</I> - specifies host name of the
interface that help server will use. It overrides host name specified
the application server plugin preferences.</LI>
<LI><B>-data</B> <I>instanceArea</I> - specifies a path that Eclipse
can use to write instance data. The value can be an absolute path of
a directory, or a path relative to Eclipse installation directory.
The option must be provided when Eclipse is installed in the read only
location, or has been customized to override osgi.instance.area or
osgi.instance.area.default properties. </LI>
<LI><B>-port</B> <I>helpServerPort</I> - specifies port number that
help server will use. It overrides port number specified the
application server plugin preferences.</LI>
<LI><B>-dir ltr </B> or<B> -dir rtl</B> - sets left-to right or right-to-left
rendering direction of help UI in the browser.</LI>
<LI>Additionally, most <A
href="../../org.eclipse.platform.doc.user/tasks/running_eclipse.htm">options
accepted by Eclipse executable</A> can be passed. They are especially useful during debugging and for applying customization to Eclipse.
For example, passing an option
<PRE><EM><SPAN style="font-style: normal">-nl fr_FR</SPAN></EM> </PRE>
will start help system in French language instead of a language specified by the machine's locale.</LI>
</UL>
<h3>Installation/packaging</h3>
These steps are for the help system integrator and are not meant to address all the
possible scenarios. It is assumed that all your documentation is delivered as eclipse
plug-ins and, in general, you are familiar with the eclipse help system.
<ol>
<li>Download the eclipse Platform Runtime Binary driver from
<a target="_blank" href="http://eclipse.org/downloads/">eclipse.org</a>.</li>
<li>Install (unzip) the driver under your application directory, for
example, <var>d:\myApp</var>. This will create an eclipse sub-directory,
d:\myApp\eclipse that contains the code required for the eclipse platform
(which includes the help system). </li>
</ol>
<h3>How to call the help classes from Java</h3>
<ol>
<li>Make sure <code>d:\myApp\eclipse\plugins\org.eclipse.help.base_[version].jar</code>
is on your classpath, where <code>[version]</code> is the version of the plugin
you're using (e.g. <code>org.eclipse.help.base_3.2.0.jar</code>). The class you use
to start, launch, and shut down the help system is
<code>org.eclipse.help.standalone.Help</code>.
</li>
<li>Create an array of <code>String</code> objects containing options that you want
to pass to help system support. Typically, the <code>eclipsehome</code> option is
needed.
<pre>String[] options = new String[] { "-eclipsehome", "d:\\myApp\\eclipse" };</pre>
</li>
<LI>In your application, create an instance of the <code>Help</code> class by
passing in the options. This object should be held onto until the end of your
application.
<pre>Help helpSystem = new Help(options);</pre>
</LI>
<li>To start the help system:
<pre><em><span style="font-style: normal">helpSystem.start();</span></em> </pre>
</li>
<li>To invoke help when needed:
<pre><em><span style="font-style: normal">helpSystem.displayHelp();</span></em> </pre>
<p>You can also call help on specific primary TOC files or topics:</p>
<pre>helpSystem.displayHelp("/com.mycompany.mytool.doc/toc.xml");
helpSystem.displayHelp("/com.mycompany.mytool.doc/tasks/task1.htm");</pre>
</li>
<li>To launch context sensitive help, call
helpSystem.displayContext(contextId, x, y) where contextId is a fully
qualified context id. The screen coordinates, x and y, are not currently used.
</li>
<LI>
<P>At the end of your application, to shutdown the help system:</P>
<PRE><EM><SPAN style="font-style: normal">helpSystem.shutdown();</SPAN></EM> </PRE></LI>
</ol>
<h3>How to call the help from the command line</h3>
<p>
The <code>org.eclipse.help.standalone.Help</code> class has a main method you can
use to launch stand-alone help from the command line. The command line arguments
syntax is:
</p>
<pre><em><span style="font-style: normal">-command start | shutdown | (displayHelp [href]) [-eclipsehome eclipseInstallPath] [-data instanceArea] [-host helpServerHost] [-port helpServerPort] [-dir rtl] [platform options] [-vmargs JavaVMarguments]</span></em></pre>
<P>A simple way to display help is to invoke</P>
<pre>java -classpath d:\myApp\eclipse\plugins\org.eclipse.help.base_[version].jar org.eclipse.help.standalone.Help -command displayHelp</pre><P>from within d:\myApp\eclipse directory, where <code>version</code> is the plug-in's version. To display a specific TOC file or topic use</P>
<PRE>java -classpath d:\myApp\eclipse\plugins\org.eclipse.help.base_[version].jar org.eclipse.help.standalone.Help -command displayHelp /com.mycompany.mytool.doc/tasks/task1.htm</PRE>
<P>The calls above to display help will cause help system to start, display help, and keep running to allow a user to continue browsing help after the command is executed. To control the life cycle of the help system, use start and shutdown commands, in addition to the displayHelp command. For example, you may call</P>
<PRE>java -classpath d:\myApp\eclipse\plugins\org.eclipse.help.base_[version].jar org.eclipse.help.standalone.Help -command start</PRE>
<h3>[Optional] Installing a minimal stand-alone help system</h3>
<p>
The stand-alone help does not require the entire eclipse Platform package. It is
possible to run the stand-alone help using only those plugins from the feature
org.eclipse.help. To do this perform the following steps.</p>
<ol>
<li>Download an eclipse SDK build and upzip it into two different locations,
<location1> and <location1></li>
<li>Remove the eclipse plugins directory from location1</li>
<li>Start Eclipse in location2 and import the org.eclipse.help and org.eclipse.rcp features into
your workspace using File/Import/Plug-in Development/Features</li>
<li>Export the help and rcp features and their plugins to a newly created directory location3 using
File/Export/Plug-in Development/Deployable Features. </li>
<li>Replace the plugins and features directories under the location1/eclipse directory
with those from location3.</li>
<li>copy org.eclipse.equinox.launcher.* from location2/eclipse/plugins to location1/eclipse/plugins.</li>
<li>From location1 start standalone help from the command line as described in
the previous section.</li>
</ol>
<p>
Some documentation plug-ins may have dependencies on other plug-ins, usually by
specifying required plug-ins in their manifest. The dependent plug-ins need to be
installed as well. Additionally, plug-ins that were designed for earlier than 3.0
version of eclipse implicitly require
<code>org.eclipse.core.runtime.compatibility</code> plug-in being present to work.
</p>
<p>See <a href="ua_help_setup_preferences.htm">Product customization</a> for more
information on customizing the help system.</p>
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