# Help files

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/help-files/162334>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [March 8, 2009, 9:19pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/help-files/162334 "2009-03-08T21:19:13Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![sclarke](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/b19c9b/32.png) [@sclarke](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/sclarke)\
**Post date:** [March 8, 2009, 9:19pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/help-files/162334/1 "2009-03-08T21:19:13Z")

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Hi forum,

I am looking to have some form of help file/technical documentation to  
go alongside a GUI application. Basically on the click of a button (help  
button) a file will be opened in its native viewer eg adobe reader for a  
PDF file.

What is the best way to perform such a task in ruby, I am quite flexible  
as to the format of the help file either a PDF or compiled html.

Many thanks

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![sclarke](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/b19c9b/32.png) [@sclarke](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/sclarke)\
**Post date:** [March 8, 2009, 10:29pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/help-files/162334/2 "2009-03-08T22:29:02Z")

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On Mar 8, 2009, at 13:17, Stuart C. wrote:

> I am looking to have some form of help file/technical documentation to  
> go alongside a GUI application. Basically on the click of a button  
> (help  
> button) a file will be opened in its native viewer eg adobe reader  
> for a  
> PDF file.
> 
> What is the best way to perform such a task in ruby, I am quite  
> flexible  
> as to the format of the help file either a PDF or compiled html.

Don’t most GUI frameworks have a built in API for displaying help  
documentation?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![sclarke](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/b19c9b/32.png) [@sclarke](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/sclarke)\
**Post date:** [March 9, 2009, 6:21pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/help-files/162334/3 "2009-03-09T18:21:04Z")

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Stuart C. wrote:

> Hi forum,
> 
> I am looking to have some form of help file/technical documentation to  
> go alongside a GUI application. Basically on the click of a button (help  
> button) a file will be opened in its native viewer eg adobe reader for a  
> PDF file.
> 
> What is the best way to perform such a task in ruby, I am quite flexible  
> as to the format of the help file either a PDF or compiled html.

It depends how sophisticated you want to get. If you simply want to  
display a PDF with help on a button being clicked, then pretty much any  
GUI should be able to do that. Call Ruby’s system with ‘start’ [Windows]  
‘open’ [OS X] or ‘xdg-open’ [Linux] and the name of the file, eg

system “open myhelp.pdf”

If you want a more sophisticated help browser - eg context-specific  
links to sections from the GUI, searching, using the native Windows CHM  
help browser, see something like:

[http://wxruby.rubyforge.org/doc/#online\_help](http://wxruby.rubyforge.org/doc/#online_help)

Esp HelpController / HtmlHelpController. As Eric says, I’d expect the  
other heavyweight GUI toolkits (GNOME2, Qt) to offer something similar,  
though I couldn’t find a reference to this for GNOME2.

alex

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![sclarke](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/b19c9b/32.png) [@sclarke](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/sclarke)\
**Post date:** [March 9, 2009, 8:08pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/help-files/162334/4 "2009-03-09T20:08:20Z")

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Thanks Alex. Really useful. I have been messing around with Lauchy this  
afternoon which may do the job, but I will check out your link.

Regards

Alex F. wrote:

> Stuart C. wrote:
> 
> > Hi forum,
> > 
> > I am looking to have some form of help file/technical documentation to  
> > go alongside a GUI application. Basically on the click of a button (help  
> > button) a file will be opened in its native viewer eg adobe reader for a  
> > PDF file.
> > 
> > What is the best way to perform such a task in ruby, I am quite flexible  
> > as to the format of the help file either a PDF or compiled html.
> 
> It depends how sophisticated you want to get. If you simply want to  
> display a PDF with help on a button being clicked, then pretty much any  
> GUI should be able to do that. Call Ruby’s system with ‘start’ [Windows]  
> ‘open’ [OS X] or ‘xdg-open’ [Linux] and the name of the file, eg
> 
> system “open myhelp.pdf”
> 
> If you want a more sophisticated help browser - eg context-specific  
> links to sections from the GUI, searching, using the native Windows CHM  
> help browser, see something like:
> 
> [http://wxruby.rubyforge.org/doc/#online\_help](http://wxruby.rubyforge.org/doc/#online_help)
> 
> Esp HelpController / HtmlHelpController. As Eric says, I’d expect the  
> other heavyweight GUI toolkits (GNOME2, Qt) to offer something similar,  
> though I couldn’t find a reference to this for GNOME2.
> 
> alex