help: recommend the system-wide install and record the location trap
A Mallard set under $XDG_DATA_HOME/help is one Yelp cannot draw the figures of: its sandbox exposes the system help directories but not the user's data directory, and each figure is a separate file the page references. The pages open without their images, and through the app's help: URI the viewer spins for ever because the failed image fetch means the page's load event never fires -- which reads as a navigation failure, not a missing resource. The alert and the manual both recommended install-help-user as the no-root route, so they led users into exactly that case. Name the system-wide install first and state the user-local caveat where the advice is given, and record the finding in the GTK traps invariant so the next figure that will not draw is not chased as a markup or a file problem.
This commit is contained in:
1 parent
6138e6bdce
commit
41cd8e5f38
3 files changed
+44
-15
No files matched your search
@@ -158,9 +158,9 @@ Part of [CLAUDE.md](../../CLAUDE.md). These are rules that cost a defect to lear
|
||||
document that was never installed, so `help_installed_path()` walks the specification's own
|
||||
`$XDG_DATA_HOME/help/<lang>/<id>/` then `$XDG_DATA_DIRS/help/<lang>/<id>/` for an `index.page` and
|
||||
the dialog says which one it is: with the manual there, install a viewer (for example `yelp`); with
|
||||
it absent, the identifier, the expected installed path and the install command
|
||||
(`cmake --build build --target install-help-user`, which installs it under the user data
|
||||
directory; `install-help` is the prefix-wide form for a system or packaged install) — and a
|
||||
it absent, the identifier and the install command, the **system-wide** form first
|
||||
(`cmake -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr .. && sudo cmake --build build --target install-help`), the
|
||||
no-root `install-help-user` second with its caveat (see the location rule below) — and a
|
||||
viewer as well, the second possibility the error alone cannot rule out. Reporting a missing
|
||||
*document* as a missing *handler* is the defect that shape avoids.
|
||||
|
||||
@@ -181,6 +181,26 @@ Part of [CLAUDE.md](../../CLAUDE.md). These are rules that cost a defect to lear
|
||||
(GTK4 must be forced to the Cairo renderer, `GSK_RENDERER=cairo`, or the X11 surface reads back
|
||||
blank). Mallard is translatable with `itstool`, but there is no i18n set-up here: only the `C`
|
||||
set is authored.
|
||||
|
||||
**A user-local help set is one Yelp cannot draw the figures of, so the system-wide install is
|
||||
the one to recommend — and this is a *location* rule, not a markup or a file rule.** Yelp
|
||||
sandboxes its WebKit subprocess, and that sandbox exposes the system help directories
|
||||
(`/usr/share/help`, `/usr/local/share/help`) but not `$XDG_DATA_HOME/help`: the pages load,
|
||||
their `<media>` figures do not, because each figure is a *separate file* the page references
|
||||
rather than something embedded in it. The symptoms read as anything but a location problem —
|
||||
opening a page *as a file* renders it with no images, and opening it through the app's `help:`
|
||||
URI leaves the viewer spinning **for ever**, the failed image fetch meaning the page's load
|
||||
event never fires while the sidebar title still updates, which looks like a navigation failure
|
||||
rather than a missing resource. A shipped GNOME page that carries a figure
|
||||
(`/usr/share/help/C/accerciser/api_browser_plugin.page`) draws either way, which is what
|
||||
isolates the cause to where the set *lives*. `make install-help` (into `/usr/local`) followed
|
||||
by `yelp /usr/local/share/help/C/<id>/<topic>.page` works; the same set under
|
||||
`~/.local/share/help` does not. Two genuine defects were chased and fixed before the location
|
||||
was found — a `<figure>` with no `<desc>` and a `bKGD` chunk the PNG spec forbids on an
|
||||
alpha image — so do not read a figure that will not draw as a repeat of either, and do not
|
||||
revert those fixes: this is why both the failure alert in `src/help_window.cpp` and the
|
||||
manual's own `overview.page` name the system-wide install first and state the user-local one's
|
||||
caveat beside it.
|
||||
- **The chooser carries the same help affordances as the window, and the tour request crosses as a
|
||||
value — not a global.** The source chooser runs *before* `App` exists, so a user who has not started
|
||||
yet is the one least able to find the help; its header bar therefore has a help `GtkMenuButton`
|
||||
|
||||
Reference in new issue
Block a user