You can allow your users to access the help system over the Internet or an intranet by installing an infocenter and the documentation plug-ins on a server. Clients view help by navigating to a URL, and the help system is shown in their Web browser. The infocenter help system can be used for both client and web applications, either of which can have their help accessed remotely. All features of help system except context help, active help, command support, and the help view are supported.
The infocenter help system allows passing number of options that can be used to customize various aspects of the infocenter. The following options are supported:
osgi.instance.area
or
osgi.instance.area.default
properties.
-nl en -locales de en es fr it ja
ko pt_BR zh_CN zh_TW
will cause infocenter to operate in 10 locales.
All other locales will receive content from the en
locale.
-vmargs -Xmx256M
increases memory available to the infocenter and will allow serving of a
larger book collection.
These steps are for the help system integrator and are not meant to address all the possible scenarios. It is assumed that all your documentation is delivered as Eclipse plug-ins and, in general, you are familiar with the eclipse help system.
d:\myApp
. This
will create an eclipse sub-directory, d:\myApp\eclipse
that
contains the code required for the Eclipse platform (which includes the
help system).
The org.eclipse.help.standalone.Infocenter
class has a
main()
method that you can use to launch the infocenter from the command
line. The command line argument syntax is:
-command start | shutdown | [-eclipsehome eclipseInstallPath] [-data instanceArea] [-host helpServerHost] [-locales localeList] [-port helpServerPort] [-dir rtl] [-noexec] [platform options] [-vmargs JavaVMarguments]
To start an infocenter on port 8081, issue a start
command by running
java -classpath d:\myApp\eclipse\plugins\org.eclipse.help.base_[version].jar org.eclipse.help.standalone.Infocenter -command start -eclipsehome d:\myApp\eclipse -port 8081
To shut down the infocenter issue a shutdown
command by running
java -classpath d:\myApp\eclipse\plugins\org.eclipse.help.base_[version].jar org.eclipse.help.standalone.Infocenter -command shutdown -eclipsehome d:\myApp\eclipse
Start the infocenter using the instructions above. Point a web browser to the
"/help/index.jsp" starting point for the Web application running on
the port specified when starting the infocenter (e.g. 8081). For example, from
the machine on which the infocenter is installed, this would be
http://localhost:8081/help/index.jsp
.
When including an infocenter as part of another application, it may be more convenient to start it and stop it using Java API calls instead of system commands. If this is the case, follow the steps:
d:\myApp\eclipse\plugins\org.eclipse.help.base_[version].jar
is on your application's classpath. The class you use to start and
shut down the infocenter is org.eclipse.help.standalone.Infocenter
.
String
objects containing options that you
want to pass to the infocenter. Typically, the eclipsehome
and
port
options are needed.
String[] options = new String[] { "-eclipsehome", "d:\\myApp\\eclipse" , "-port", "8081" };
Help
class by
passing in the options.
Infocenter infocenter = new Help(options);
infocenter.start();
infocenter.shutdown();
Eclipse contains a complete infocenter and does not require any other server
software to run. However, in an unsecure environment like the Internet, it is
not recommended to allow direct access by the clients, but instead made
available through an HTTP server or an application server. Most servers come
with modules or servlets for delegating certain request to other Web resources.
For example, one may configure a proxy module of the Apache HTTP Server to
redirect requests made to http://mycompany.com/myproduct/infocenter
to http://internalserver:8081/help
that runs an infocenter. Adding
the lines
LoadModule proxy_module modules/ApacheModuleProxy.dll ProxyPass /myproduct/infocenter http://internalserver:8081/help ProxyPassReverse /myproduct/infocenter http://internalserver:8081/help
to the conf/httpd.conf
file of Apache server running the mycompany
web site accomplishes this.
Some versions of the Apache HTTP server may contain an AddDefaultCharset directive enabled in configuration file. Remove the directive or replace it with
AddDefaultCharset Off
to have browsers display documents using correct character set.
Multiple instances of an infocenter can be run on a machine from one
installation. Each started instance must use its own port and must be provided
with a workspace, hence the -port
and -data
options
must be specified. The instances can serve documentation from different sets of
plug-ins by providing a valid platform configuration with the
-configuration
option.
If -configuration
is not used and the configuration directory is
shared among multiple infocenter instances with overlapping sets of locales,
you must be ensure that all search indexes are created by one infocenter
instance before another instance is started. Indexes are saved in the
configuration directory, and write access is not synchronized across infocenter
instances.
Filtering support is turned off when running in infocenter mode, causing all content, including filtered content, to be visible. If you intent to host your documentation in both workbench and infocenter modes, you should use filters in a way that makes sense even if filtering is turned off.
The infocenter does not require the entire Eclipse Platform package. It is
possible to run an infocenter with the following plug-ins (located in the
eclipse\plugins
directory):
org.apache.lucene
org.eclipse.core.runtime
org.eclipse.help
org.eclipse.help.appserver
org.eclipse.help.base
org.eclipse.help.webapp
org.eclipse.osgi
org.eclipse.tomcat
org.eclipse.update.configurator
Some documentation plug-ins may have dependencies on other plug-ins, usually by specifying the required plug-ins in their bundle manifest. The dependent plug-ins need to be installed on the infocenter as well.
See the Product customization topic for more information on customizing the help system.