Creating a help page for a custom op

[Daniel]

I have a custom op and would like to add help. I know I can make a .ds file.. right now my op doesn't need one though so I was hoping to avoid that.

For the normal apps they are stored in:

chrome://houdini_helpcards/locale/pop/OPNAME.html

On disk this ends up being under

$HFS/mozilla/chrome/houdini_helpcards/locale/en-US/pop/OPNAME.html

Is there a location like this one where I can put an html page that the help button will automatically look for? I don't want to put it here in the base install dir (plus I don't have write permissions to that at work)

thnx

d

[Jason]

This is a great question! Currently for OTLs we use a Meta Refresh tag to forward to a site - in our case, an internal Wiki page. Been wondering about DSO's lately.

<META HTTP-EQUIV="refresh" content="0;URL=http://www.yoursite.com/newpage.htm">

[Daniel]

This is a great question! Currently for OTLs we use a Meta Refresh tag to forward to a site - in our case, an internal Wiki page. Been wondering about DSO's lately.

<META HTTP-EQUIV="refresh" content="0;URL=http://www.yoursite.com/newpage.htm">

16189[/snapback]

Thanks for the code snip. Yes, we have something similar.. twiki pages for our docs and I have been pointing our otl help pages directly to them.

Looks like there is a class in the HDK called "UT_HelpManager" which allows you to trigger the help browser.. unfortunatly it looks like I'd have to add a help button to my node to trigger this since I don't know how to get at the standard help button callback. Hopfully there is a way. I'll see what SESI has to say

[Guest xionmark]

Hi there,

Try the getHelpText() call, works great and you don;'t need to maintain external help files.

--Mark

[Daniel]

Hi there,

Try the getHelpText() call, works great and you don;'t need to maintain external help files.

--Mark

16207[/snapback]

Thanks for the pointer Mark. I've tried to use this, but I'm not getting it to work.. any examples?

thanks

d

[Guest xionmark]

Hi Daniel,

Here's an example:

void SOP_RF_Export::getHelpText (UT_String &help, int level, bool *is_html_ptr) {

help = "<h3>Real Flow Geometry Export SOP</h3>";

help += "The Real Flow SD File Export SOP will export Houdini ";

help += "geometry to Real Flow SD (Scene Description) files";

}

It comes up in the help browser. Notice you can intermingle HTML tags in the text.

[Daniel]

Hi Daniel,

Here's an example:

void    SOP_RF_Export::getHelpText (UT_String &help, int level, bool *is_html_ptr) {

    help  = "<h3>Real Flow Geometry Export SOP</h3>";

    help += "The Real Flow SD File Export SOP will export Houdini ";

    help += "geometry to Real Flow SD (Scene Description) files";

 

}

It comes up in the help browser.  Notice you can intermingle HTML tags in the text.

16214[/snapback]

I get, thanks for the example. Works perfect!.. thanks

d

[Daniel]

I get, thanks for the example. Works perfect!.. thanks

d

16215[/snapback]

Hmm.. hit another snag. I put in a link to our local twiki serve and get:

Authorization Required

This server could not verify that you are authorized to access the document requested. Either you supplied the wrong credentials (e.g., bad password), or your browser doesn't understand how to supply the credentials required.

In houdini 6 a dialog would pop up allowing you to type in a user name and password.. doesn't happen anymore..