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1 : dbirsan 1.1 <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//w3c//dtd html 4.0 transitional//en">
2 :     <html>
3 :     <head>
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5 :     <meta name="Author" content="eclipse.org">
6 :     <meta name="GENERATOR" content=
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8 :     <title>
9 :     Standalone
10 :     </title>
11 :     <link rel="stylesheet" href="default_style.css" type="text/css">
12 :     </head>
13 :     <body>
14 :     <p>
15 :     &nbsp;
16 :     </p>
17 :     <table border="0" cellspacing="5" cellpadding="2" width="100%">
18 :     <tr>
19 :     <td align="LEFT" valign="TOP" colspan="2" bgcolor="#0080C0">
20 :     <b><font face="Arial,Helvetica"><font color=
21 :     "#FFFFFF">Stand-alone</font></font></b>
22 :     </td>
23 :     </tr>
24 :     <tr>
25 :     <td>
26 :     Stand-alone (local) - If you are creating an application that is
27 :     not based on the Eclipse framework, you can still use the
28 :     Eclipse help system. Your application can package and install
29 :     the stand-alone help system, a very small version of Eclipse
30 :     that has had everything except the help system stripped out of
31 :     it. Then, your application can make API calls from its Help
32 :     menu, or from UI objects, to launch the help browser. The
33 :     stand-alone help system has all the features of the integrated
34 :     help system, as described in the following sections. However, it
35 :     interacts with the application UI for features such as
36 :     context-sensitive help or active help will vary. All features
37 :     except infopops and active help are supported.
38 :     <p>
39 :     <b>Installation/packaging</b>
40 :     </p>
41 :     <ol>
42 :     <li style="list-style: none">
43 :     These steps are for the help system integrator and are not
44 :     meant to address all the possible scenarios. It is
45 :     asssumed that you have java application that requires launching
46 :     help, and that all your documentation is delivered as
47 :     plugins and, in general, you are familiar with the eclipse
48 :     help system.
49 :     </li>
50 :     <li>
51 :     Install (unzip) Eclipse 2.0 driver under your applicatin directory,
52 :     say, d:\myApp\. This will create an eclipse subdirectory, d:\myApp\eclipse
53 :     that contains the plugins directory, etc.
54 :     </li>
55 :     <li>
56 :     Optionally, until a trimmed down version of the stand-alone packaging is
57 :     provided, you can remove most of the plugins, and leave only org.apache.xerces,
58 :     org.apache.lucene, org.eclipse.core.boot, org.eclipse.core.runtime, org.eclipse.help,
59 :     org.eclipse.help.ui, org.eclipse.help.webapp, org.eclipse.ui, org.eclipse.swt and
60 :     org.eclipse.tomcat.
61 :     </li>
62 :     </ol>
63 :     <p>
64 :     <b>How to call the help classes:</b><br>
65 :     <ol>
66 :     <li>
67 :     Make sure <em>d:\myApp\eclipse\plugins\org.eclipse.help\help.jar</em> is on your app classpath.
68 :     </li>
69 :     <li>
70 :     org.eclipse.help.standalone.Help is the class that you should be using to start, launch and shutdown help.
71 :     </li>
72 :     <li>
73 :     At some point, create an instance of the Help class by passing the plugins directory.
74 :     This object should be hold onto until the end of your app.
75 :     <br>
76 :     <em>Help helpSystem = new Help("d:\\myApp\\eclipse\\plugins");</em>
77 :     </li>
78 :     <li>
79 :     Start the help system:
80 :     <br>
81 :     <em>helpSystem.start();</em>
82 :     <br>
83 :     At the end of your app, shutdown the help system:
84 :     <br>
85 :     <em>helpSystem.shutdown();</em>
86 :     </li>
87 :     <li>
88 :     Invoke help when needed: <em>helpSystem.displayHelp();</em>
89 :     <br>
90 :     You can also call help on specific books or topics (make sure the url's are help specific,
91 :     see the eclipse docs: "/pluginID/path/to/book.xml" or "/pluginID/path/to/topic.html")
92 :     <br>
93 :     <em>helpSystem.displayHelp("/pluginId/toc.xml")</em>
94 :     </li>
95 :     <li>
96 :     To launch context sensitive help, call helpSystem.displayContext(contextId, x, y)
97 :     where contextId is a fully qualified context id. The screen coordinates, x and y, are
98 :     not currently used.
99 :     </li>
100 : dbirsan 1.2 <li><b>Test drive standalone help</b>
101 :     The org.eclipse.help.standalone.Help class has a simple main program that you can launch and see how
102 :     the stand-alone help works out of the box (if it does :-)
103 :     </li>
104 : dbirsan 1.1 </ol>
105 :     </p>
106 :     <p>
107 :     <b>Installing custom documentation:</b><br>
108 :     Eclipse comes with its own documentation.&nbsp; It will be
109 :     available in the infocenter by default.<br>
110 :     To have you own documentation show up, package the
111 :     documentation as Eclipse plugins.&nbsp; Install them to
112 :     d:\myApp\eclipse\plugins\.&nbsp; To remove Eclipse documentation
113 :     that is in the infocenter default, delete following
114 :     directories:
115 :     </p>
116 :     <ul>
117 :     <li>
118 :     d:\myApp\eclipse\plugins\org.eclipse.jdt.doc.isv
119 :     </li>
120 :     <li>
121 :     d:\myApp\eclipse\plugins\org.eclipse.jdt.doc.user
122 :     </li>
123 :     <li>
124 :     d:\myApp\eclipse\plugins\org.eclipse.pde.doc.user
125 :     </li>
126 :     <li>
127 :     d:\myApp\eclipse\plugins\org.eclipse.platform.doc.isv
128 :     </li>
129 :     <li>
130 :     d:\myApp\eclipse\plugins\org.eclipse.platform.doc.user.
131 :     </li>
132 :     </ul>
133 :     <p>
134 :     <b>Customizing standalone look:</b><br>
135 :     TBD
136 :     </p>
137 :     </td>
138 :     </tr>
139 :     </table>
140 :     </body>
141 :     </html>
142 :