Opening a *.chm file

Hello everybody,

some of you may already have noticed that in DOORS 9.3 <F1> does not open a local DOORS help (doors.chm) anymore but opens the Rational Help System instead.
There are two annoying aspects about this:

first I cannot make the help system to appear in English on my local German Windows to match the client appearance (managed to have the client appear in English)
second the help system has links to the IBM site with lots of stuff I do not want my users to access directly, including the IBM support.

So my current workaround (and IBM support agreed that this currently was the best solution) is to put the "doors.chm" file from 9.2 under the <F1> button.
Okay, so I successfully edited the "createItem" in baseWindowMenu.inc.
The only shortcoming is that the "doors.chm" does not open directly, but I get a "File Download - Security Warning" first.

Any ideas how to solve this?

Karl
kabr - Wed Aug 24 04:18:16 EDT 2011

Re: Opening a *.chm file
SystemAdmin - Wed Aug 24 05:57:27 EDT 2011

Hi Karl,

Does your message is a Windows message ?

Maybe that is not related but with windows XP SP3, they added security options that prevent you to open .chm file located on server. Some changes must be made in the windows db registry

But your .chm file is local so I don't have any idea..

Regards

David

Re: Opening a *.chm file
Mathias Mamsch - Wed Aug 24 08:56:37 EDT 2011

Depends on your DXL code, that createItem uses. If you use an URL to open the CHM file, the natural Internet Explorer restrictions will apply. You can test if you put the URL on the IExplorer if you get the same message. Then you would have to trust this file somehow (not using IE so no idea how). You could also use another mechanism for starting up the help.

system("start C:\\dir\\test.chm")

would probably not show the same behavior. So this would be the second way to go. Regards, Mathias

Mathias Mamsch, IT-QBase GmbH, Consultant for Requirement Engineering and D00RS

Re: Opening a *.chm file
kabr - Wed Aug 24 09:46:07 EDT 2011

Yes, it's a Windows message.
Tried both with .chm file on a server and local file, with same results.

And yes, I tried to open a URL, so Mathias, your guess is right.
Tried your suggestion.
It works on the command line
but from DOORS I get the message "CreateProcess failed".

Re: Opening a *.chm file
Mathias Mamsch - Wed Aug 24 16:23:18 EDT 2011

kabr - Wed Aug 24 09:46:07 EDT 2011
Yes, it's a Windows message.
Tried both with .chm file on a server and local file, with same results.

And yes, I tried to open a URL, so Mathias, your guess is right.
Tried your suggestion.
It works on the command line
but from DOORS I get the message "CreateProcess failed".

In this case you could try to use

system("cmd.exe /C start c:\\test.chm")

instead. I thought we had a thread about opening CHM files ... Cannot find it at the moment ... Regards, Mathias

Mathias Mamsch, IT-QBase GmbH, Consultant for Requirement Engineering and D00RS

Re: Opening a *.chm file
kabr - Thu Aug 25 05:31:30 EDT 2011

Mathias Mamsch - Wed Aug 24 16:23:18 EDT 2011

In this case you could try to use

system("cmd.exe /C start c:\\test.chm")

instead. I thought we had a thread about opening CHM files ... Cannot find it at the moment ... Regards, Mathias

Mathias Mamsch, IT-QBase GmbH, Consultant for Requirement Engineering and D00RS

Yes, I thought so too, but couldn't find it either. That's why I asked.

With your last suggestion I'm getting closer to what I want, only now I have a console window open in the background.

Thanks.

Karl

Re: Opening a *.chm file
kabr - Thu Aug 25 08:59:20 EDT 2011

kabr - Thu Aug 25 05:31:30 EDT 2011
Yes, I thought so too, but couldn't find it either. That's why I asked.

With your last suggestion I'm getting closer to what I want, only now I have a console window open in the background.

Thanks.

Karl

Got rid of the console window now by calling a batch file.

But now I realize there are still all those context help buttons %-/
and I have no clue so far how to redirect these ...

Karl