124902 - Help in Preferences dialog does nothing

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(SeaMonkey :: Help Documentation, defect)

Description

[Terri Preston]

Steps to reproduce:
1. From the Edit drop down menu, select preferences
2. Click on the help button

Expected results:
Help window should appear

Actual results:
Nothing happens

(Sorry if there is already a bug but I didn't see one)

I see this on Win XP build 2002021108, Mac OS X 2002021108, and linux build
2002021112

Comment 1

[Ian Oeschger (gone)]

Not at all, Terri. We need this bug. We broke context-sensitive help when we
checked in our update (as we expected), and we need to fix it again as soon as
possible. I have the patches for this in 124273, but it might be better to put
them here and track them separately. Also having to deal with 124882 and whether
that will be resolved this round or the next. Thanks.

Comment 2

[Patty Mac]

Also seen on windows 98 as well (commercial netscape build: 2002-02-12-06-trunk

Comment 3

[Ian Oeschger (gone)]

Attachment: zip file with updates to UI to call help with a topic

Comment 4

[Ian Oeschger (gone)]

Attachment: updates to help system to support context-sensitive help

Also includes an update to the test.xul file showing the new sytnax for asking
for help from the UI. Note that in Mozilla, you do not have to call
setHelpFileURI() at all; this is a facility for specifying some help system
other than the one loaded by default, which is mozillahelp.rdf

Comment 5

[rudman]

nsbeta1+, setting milestone.

Comment 6

[Ian Oeschger (gone)]

Note: it might be better to include the file contextHelp.js somewhere lower down
so everyone can get it. It's small (now), and if it was included in something
general like tasksOverlay.xul or communicatorOverlay.xul (I can't remember which
file is meant for this basic everyone-in-the-browser-gets-it facility), then you
could call openHelp() anywhere in the UI w/o explicitly including this file.

Further: if we overlay into the overlay (i.e., with a XUL file that includes
only the script), then we can separate out the help _extension_ a little better
than we are now.

Comment 7

[Ian Oeschger (gone)]

adding sr=alecf on alec's behalf. Also note the following minor adjustment to
the mailnews/base/prefs/resources/content diff in this zip file, where alec
noticed a place I had not updated the syntax of the call to openHelp() properly:

> 	openHelp('mail'); 

...is what it should say instead of openHelp('?mail').

Comment 8

[andreww]

Comment on attachment 69416 [details] [diff] [review]
updates to help system to support context-sensitive help

r=andreww

Comment 9

[Asa Dotzler [:asa]]

a=asa (on behalf of drivers) for checkin to 0.9.9

Comment 10

[Ian Oeschger (gone)]

I'd like to leave this open so we can test all the buttons and note any problems
here. But the check-in went in last night, so we ought to see the cs help
restored in this morning's build. Thanks, Asa.

Comment 11

[Patrick]

seems to work with build 2002022603 for XP.

However, clicking OK in the PREFERENCES window takes a LONG time to process.
What i did : i expand every item in the PREFERNCE window and browse through the
entire tree (i was looking for new items), arriving at the end i clicked OK.
Perhaps mozilla writes every entry that was opened to the preference file, even
though nothing was changed?

Comment 12

[Ian Oeschger (gone)]

Attachment: some leftovers that still need to be updated

These buttons didn't get updated with our check-in on Monday night, so cs help
is still not hooked up here. Need to have this reviewed by the security team
and shoved in ASAP.

Comment 13

[Ian Oeschger (gone)]

Just checked in some follow-ups to this restoration. For some reason I missed a
couple of the syntax updates in the security manager code. These files just got
updated:
M certViewer.xul
M changepassword.xul
M choosetoken.xul
M clientauthask.xul
M device_manager.xul
M domainMismatch.xul
M downloadcert.xul
M editcacert.xul
M editsslcert.xul
M escrowWarn.xul
M getp12password.xul
M setp12password.xul

Comment 14

[Ian Oeschger (gone)]

Attachment: fix to main help menu item

Unfortunately, this one also got left behind. 
I didn't include it in the first cs patch, but the Help menu should be a client
of the New Way too. I think that in recent builds the menu item may not be
working at all from Mail for this very reason (verify anyone?). A good excuse
to get this in as soon as possible.

Comment 15

[rudman]

Ian, what was the Help menu item issue? This bug was about the Prefs dialog. The
summary of the bug should be updated, but I'm not sure what you were fixing.

The help menu in the early build of 2/27 (commercial trunk) works from the Mail
window. When I first tried to open Help from Mail, I got a blank iframe on the
right---the ToC was there, but no main page. I've seen this intermittently,
though. Anyone else seen this? I can't duplicate. The next time I opened mail
(even in a new session), things worked fine.

The Help menu now works in the Mail Compose window! I thought that there was
still an outstanding (and futured) bug against Bhuvan to fix that. The Help menu
in the History window is still off, though. Bookmarks Help menu is fine. Ditto
for Address Book.

Comment 16

[Ian Oeschger (gone)]

I was using this bug as a way to track all of the restoration of the
context-sensitive help, metonymy-wise. The help menu still uses
toOpenHelpWindowByType(), which is defined somewhere that not everyone in the UI
picks up, evidenly. In this patch, I explicitly load the JS file, so it's
portable: wherever this file overlays, it will open Help.

Comment 17

[Ian Oeschger (gone)]

These three files also needed updating in the tree with the new and improved
syntax. I have just done so.

M serverCertExpired.xul
M serverCrlExpired.xul
M serverCrlNextupdate.xul

Comment 18

[Ian Oeschger (gone)]

Marking FIXED. After fixing the problem actually being addressed here, I used
this bug as a way to track buttons still needed in the UI, but we have another
bug for that now at 129540

Comment 19

[Terri Preston]

Verified fixed win XP build 2002032803, Mac OS X build 2002040203 and linux
build 2002040211