Help menu item can't find browser

[Bill]

I just upgraded to v11 on my 2.0 gHz, 1 GB memory, windows 2000 PC. When I clicked on the Help menu item it went to Netscape v4.7, an old version that I haven't used in a while; I'm currently using Netscape v7.1.

Windows associates htm and html files with Netscape v7.1.

I decided to delete Netscape v4.7, uninstall and reinstall VW v11 hoping that VW's Help would then use netscape v7.1.

Now, when I click on Help, then Contents, nothing happens. I'm guessing that VW is not finding whatever browser that it is looking for, which doesn't seem to be Netscape v7.1. It doesn't display an error message saying it can't find the browser.

The Help, What's This? and About Vectorworks choices work.

Question

Short of rebuilding the entire PC, what can I do to get help to work? Might there be something in the Windows registry that I can edit?

[ 06-20-2004, 09:09 AM: Message edited by: Bill ]

[Guest]

Do you have Adobe Acrobat Reader installed?

[Bill]

Katie,

Yep, I have Acrobat version 5.0.5 installed.

[ 06-11-2004, 07:55 PM: Message edited by: Bill ]

[Guest]

Go to the VWHelp folder in the VW 11 folder.

Open one of the folders and then double click on any one of the HTML documents. Which browser opens?

[Bill]

Katie,

Short Answer

Netscape v7.1 opens up.

Long Answer

I tried some other folders that I have that contain html files. They open up with Netscape v7.1

In the VWHelp folder, I double clicked on "index.htm" and Netscape v7.1 opened up, though it took about 15 seconds because of all the Java stuff involved, i guess.

In the VWHelp/Architect folder I successfully opened a few of the html files in Netscape.

Question

What was on your mind when you asked about Acrobat Reader?

Could there be something in the windoze registry, left over from the first VW install, when Netscape v4 was still installed, that is telling VW that my browser is Netscape v4?

[Guest]

So when you go to the Help menu and select VW help, does Netscape 7 open now?

[Bill]

Katie,

Sorry, I didn't clarifty things. Nothing has changed from what I posted initially, and that is that, after having removed Netscape v4 and leaving only Netscape v7 installed, when I go to the Help menu and select Contents, nothing happens. There is no "VW Help" as part of the Help menu.

I still have VW v8.5 installed and clicking on its VW Help starts Netscape v7.1. VW v10 uses Acrobat.

Question

Might there be some VW log file somewhere that would contain an error message generate when I click Help, Contents?

[Guest]

While in VW, hit the F1 key to see if it brings up the Help system.

[Bill]

Katie,

F1 does not bring up Help.

[Guest]

Go to the VW folder and open the VWHELP folder.

Double click on the Index.html file.

Does anything happen when you open this file?

[ 06-16-2004, 09:10 AM: Message edited by: Katie ]

[Bill]

Hi Katie,

Sorry for the delay.

Good news, Opening that index.htm file works fine, though it took about 25 seconds to show the page, probably because of the slow java used to implement the help.

The status so far, is,

• I can get to the Help, using your brute force path,
• but using the Help menu or the F1 key still result in nothing happening.
• I changed my default browser to Internet Exploder, nothing was displayed, same as when Netscape is my default browser.
• according to Add/Remove Programs I have "Java 2 Runtime Environment, SE v1.4.1_02" and "v1.4.1_01", installed, in this new partition.

I created a new partition on my hard disk and installed windows 2000 in it then installed Version 11.

• Clicking on Help, etc did start Netscape v7.1. it got as far as the VWHelp/wwhelp/wwhimpl/java/html/wwhelp.htm page displaying a page where the left vertical third has the cup of coffee icon, and the right two thirds has some navigation and printing icons. Then it sits there. The windows Task Manager says Netscape is not responding, so I kill it.
• Wierdly, in this new partition, if I just press F1, it successfully displays help for whatever tool is active, like the 2D Selection tool.
• Rebooting this new partition did not help.
• While waiting to see if Netscape/Java will wake up, if I right click on the Java icon, located by the clock, and click on either About Java, or Open Console, a small window is opened, but remains empty.
• If I navigate by hand, using your suggestion above, I get the same results, Netscape just hangs.
• Curiously, I can use Internet Explorer, to navigate to the help file manually, and the help opens fine.
• according to Add/Remove Programs I have "Java 2 Runtime Environment, SE v1.4.1_02" installed, in this new partition.

Summary

• Manually using netscape works fine
• I think there is something in the Windows Registry, or some other file, telling VW to look for old Netscape v4
• There is obviously something wierd going onin that new partitionm, between Netscape and, I guess Java, causing Netscape to not hang up, but not Internet Explorer.

I prefer Netscape versus Internet Explorer, because Netscape has Tabs, like Apple's Safari. So as long as I can navigate manually with Netscape, in my normal working Windows partition, I am content.

Before closing this item, it might be nice to ask the programer, how Help decides which browser to load.

[Bob Haddleton]

I have this same problem, under Windows 98 with Mozilla Firefox as my default browser. F1 and Help->Contents don't work at all, but if I go to VWHelp and double click on index.htm, it brings up Firefox (eventually - it is slow, as Bill mentioned).

Other Windows applications have no problem finding Firefox as the default Windows browser, so is Vectorworks doing something special?

Thanks in advance

Bob Haddleton