Bug 492305

I can confirm this.

Docs are available in a separated package: gnucash-docs
That package install the file gnucash-guide.xml in /usr/share/gnome/help/gnucash/C/
In /usr/share/gnucash there is a gnome/ directory (inode/directory) which links to ../gnome
So the file /usr/share/gnucash/gnome/help/gnucash/C/gnucash-guide.xml DOES exist.

I get the same error message on the main window of KDE Help Center (from the error requester, it's something like "help:/usr/share/gnucash/gnome/help/gnucash/C/gnucash-guide.xml does not exist")

The first question is: Why GnuCash, running on Gnome, is triggering the KDE Help Center ?

Searching for "gnucash" from Yelp give results for gnc-prices manual page and gnucash manual page, but nothing about the tutorial guide.
(BTW, launching Yelp from a console, I see a lot of warning messages like :
 I/O warning : failed to load external entity "help:cheese" )

I guess there is a missing reference to gnucash-guide somewhere; or something broken in Yelp.

This problem does not just affect GnuCash, but some other applications as well.
See: https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=436942#c6

Created attachment 288145 [details]
STDERR output from yelp

When starting yelp from console, a lot of warning messages are output (attached here).
One I find interesting (?) is:
WARNING: Unknown element ; DocPath: ; Icon=document2

I interpret this as yelp not knowing where the document path is. (??)

BTW, it would help if yelp would print the name of the .directory resp. .desktop file.

What's the name of the element yelp complains about?

    ; DocPath: ; Icon=document2

This was meant as a comment (I once was told the ";" sign is a comment start letter--according to http://standards.freedesktop.org/desktop-entry-spec/latest/ar01s02.html#comments only "#" seems to be allowed).

I'll clone this report to check the opensuse-manual related desktop files.

But this is probably not the cause for the invisibility of gnucash documentation.

(In reply to comment #4)

> I'll clone this report to check the opensuse-manual related desktop files.

Bug 498731

Not sure if related nor even if it will help, but I suspect it could be worth mentioning that:

After I updated to openSUSE 11.1, I removed the Beagle related packages (as I did with 11.0, but then, I had no problem to access the help documents).

Created attachment 289843 [details]
More console output from yelp

With yelp started from console (see comment #3 ), if I start a search on, let's say "gnucash", I get another bunch of warnings (attached here).

Starting with:
(yelp:5420): Yelp-WARNING **: beagled not running, using basic search support.

and followed by a lots of I/O warnings like:
I/O warning : failed to load external entity "help:"

(but no signs of any "help:gnucash")

I get this bug also in OpenSuSE 11.1.  Is there a workaround, at least?

*** Bug 515446 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

I've upgraded to openSUSE 11.2 yesterday, and the problem with the help files is gone (so far, I tried with the GnuCash help, and I got it right).

closing as fixed as per comment 10

I just found that this has recurred since I have moved to Open SuSE 11.4 from 11.3. It worked fine so long as yelp was installed in 11.3 in spite of no requirement for it being mentioned when gnucash was installed. That workaround however no longer seems to work.

DJC

In fact I suspect it recurred in 11.3 but I found the yelp workaround. Maybe I should have been more proactive and re-opened the bug back then. :(

The re-opening should perhaps be qualified by the phrase "for SuSE 11.4 users with KDE.

(In reply to comment #14)
> The re-opening should perhaps be qualified by the phrase "for SuSE 11.4 users
> with KDE.


Maybe there is a solution for this bug. See FAQ of gnucash:

----snip----
[Novell|open]SuSE
Q: Trying to open the help menu under SuSE, I get the error: "GnuCash could not find the files for the help documentation."

    A: For some reason SuSE seems always to have bugs relating to the GC docs.

        * You may have to use YaST to install the
              o yelp and
              o gnucash-docs packages. 
        * In SuSE 11.4 replacing the symlink 

            /usr/bin/gnome-help -> susehelp 

        with

            /usr/bin/gnome-help -> /usr/bin/yelp 

        allows GC Help -> Contents to show as expected. 

    For older SuSE versions: gnome-help has moved from /opt/ to /usr/. 
----snap----

Please verify - and maybe close the bug; but please don't fill in this bug back in 12.1

*** Bug 709991 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Thank you for that help Johannes

I can confirm some success with your suggested solution.

On my installation of SuSE 11.4 I had already used YaST to install both yelp and the gnu-cash docs packages. However I repeated it to make sure they are both present and then I replaced the symlink you mentioned using the following:

        rm gnome-help ; ln -s yelp gnome-help

After doing that I now have the link "gnome-help -> yelp" in my /usr/bin directory instead of linking to SuSE's default KDE help. The result is gnucash help works fine for the first time since I installed it. Many many thanks.

I feel that there is still a bug here but my lack of understanding of different folks responsibilities makes it difficult to decide where to direct any feedback about it. The bottom line is that I have just tried a clean install of SuSE 11.4 on a spare machine then installed gnucash followed by yelp and find I still have to use your solution to make the help work. I have not tried any other gnome applications but suspect the same might apply. Perhaps the bug could be marked as "Workaround exists" rather than closing it.


It would be very nice were the developers to find away to enable future releases to recognise the help system needed by non KDE applications without users having to resort to this sort of command line fix.





(In reply to comment #15)
> (In reply to comment #14)
> > The re-opening should perhaps be qualified by the phrase "for SuSE 11.4 users
> > with KDE.
> 
> 
> Maybe there is a solution for this bug. See FAQ of gnucash:
> 
> ----snip----
> [Novell|open]SuSE
> Q: Trying to open the help menu under SuSE, I get the error: "GnuCash could not
> find the files for the help documentation."
> 
>     A: For some reason SuSE seems always to have bugs relating to the GC docs.
> 
>         * You may have to use YaST to install the
>               o yelp and
>               o gnucash-docs packages. 
>         * In SuSE 11.4 replacing the symlink 
> 
>             /usr/bin/gnome-help -> susehelp 
> 
>         with
> 
>             /usr/bin/gnome-help -> /usr/bin/yelp 
> 
>         allows GC Help -> Contents to show as expected. 
> 
>     For older SuSE versions: gnome-help has moved from /opt/ to /usr/. 
> ----snap----
> 
> Please verify - and maybe close the bug; but please don't fill in this bug back
> in 12.1

It looks as though #598206 is closely related to this bug and could well benefit from the same resolution.

After a night worth of bug hunting, debugging and fiddling, the needed fixes have been submitted to the openSUSE 12.2 branches (current tree).

As this bug was against 11.1 (and re-opened on 11.4, which is due to be EOL in just a few months), I close this bug; (also considering that a workaround exists and has even been documented on the gnucash website).

Hope this is fine for you.

(For reference, the 12.2 bug is / was bug 771530