leopard help window headaches

[tw]

another gripe that I hope someone has a cure for. turns out that the new incarnation of the Help Viewer in Leopard uses these huge, always-on-top floating utility windows, and when I saw always-on-top I mean there's just no way to get them out of the way short of closing or minimizing them. This is definitely "Jane, stop this crazy thing" territory. there's no interface or preference window for the help viewer that I can find - does anyone know how to get this to be a little more discreet?

[Las_Vegas]

In order to modify the type of window, you'll need to install the Programmer's Tools from your Leopard install DVD so you have the Interface Builder utility available.

Using Finder's 'Go to Folder' command (Shift-Command-G), enter /System/Library/CoreServices/Help Viewer.app/Contents/Resources/English.lproj. Now, Option-Drag the HelpWindow.nib file to your desktop and double-click the copy on your desktop to open it with Interface Builder.

In Interface Builder, double-click the "Window" icon. Note the window to the right titled, "Window Connections." Click the leftmost icon to change it to "Window Attributes." Uncheck the Style attribute "Utility" and save your work.

To replace the original HelpWindow.nib with your modified version, launch the Terminal application in your /Applications/Utilities folder and enter the following:

cd /System/Library/CoreServices/Help Viewer.app/Contents/Resources/English.lproj
sudo mv HelpWindow.nib HelpWindowBack.nib
sudo mv ~/Desktop/HelpWindow.nib HelpWindow.nib

Note: When you are prompted for a password, just type your Administrator password. Ignore than no text or dots appear. They aren't supposed to.

This should change the Help window into a standard window. To change it back enter the following into Terminal

cd /System/Library/CoreServices/Help Viewer.app/Contents/Resources/English.lproj
sudo mv HelpWindow.nib HelpWindowMod.nib
sudo mv HelpWindowBack.nib HelpWindow.nib

[anika123]

wow, thanks vegas. I wonder if this could all be done with an applescript.

[tw]

Quote: Originally Posted by anika123 wow, thanks vegas. I wonder if this could all be done with an applescript.

sure, no problem. I'll do it later in the week.

[tw]

ah, unfortunately it wasn't that easy. it seems that all Panel-type windows float (regardless of whether the utility checkbox is clicked). and then, when I tried changing to a normal NSWindow type (instead of the HVwindow type) the window wasn't visible at all (possibly because I did some thing wrong, and possibly because this new faceless background helpviewer won't display normal windows...)

piffle.

[tagooty]

I had read in a review of Leopard that Help Viewer checks for updated pages in the Web in a separate thread, so these annoying pauses are avoided.

However, Help Viewer on my MacBook running 10.5.1 definitely does not use a background thread. This I've verified by setting HelpViewerDebugging to YES with the command "defaults write com.apple.helpviewer HelpViewerDebugging 0". The output in the Console shows that the pause is due to attempt to lookup in the Web (http://helposx.apple.com/leopard/...), only after this times out the local page is displayed. The Web failure occurs because of some DNS or proxy problem.

Is there any way to (a) enable background lookup in the Web (b) disable the Web lookup? Looking at the default settings using the command "defaults read com.apple.helpviewer" did not show anything obvious.

Regards
TAG

[fazstp]

I have to say I'm not too happy with the Leopard help viewer. I too find the always-on-top annoying but probably my greatest annoyance is that I am used to using command-q to quit the help viewer but in Leopard this is passed to the current app instead of closing help.

Well I followed this hint: 10.5: Set Help Viewer windows to non-floating mode which changed the window mode. The only problem is that it now opens beneath the app instead of opening on top so you have to option-tab into the help viewer. It does stop the command-q being passed to the active app but it seems to ignore any shortcuts even though they are listed in the help menus.