I've never been able to use the ElevateDB context-sensitive help in
Delphi. Out of desperation, I carried out a repair in Delphi XE2,
which, of course, caused a whole unrelated mess, but it certainly
didn't solve the issue where each time I want ElevateDB help, I get
"The local disk does not contain the files for blablabla...".

Re-installing ElevateDB did nothing.

How to properly get this help working?

Dominique,

<< I've never been able to use the ElevateDB context-sensitive help in
Delphi. Out of desperation, I carried out a repair in Delphi XE2, which, of
course, caused a whole unrelated mess, but it certainly didn't solve the
issue where each time I want ElevateDB help, I get "The local disk does not
contain the files for blablabla...". >>

This is an MS Help 2 installation issue, not an issue with the ElevateDB
help in particular.  It's very easy to end up with a corrupted or messed-up
MS Help 2 installation, as many developers have found out.

What is the blablabla part - is it saying that it can't find the help files
for ElevateDB ?

Tim Young
Elevate Software
www.elevatesoft.com

Tim Young [Elevate Software] wrote:
> What is the blablabla part - is it saying that it can't find the help
> files for ElevateDB ?

I was afraid you'd ask that. Have you ever seen the Seinfeld episode
featuring "yadayadayada?"

Literally:

------------------------------------
The local disk does not contain the files for "C:\Program
Files\ElevateDB 2 VCL-STD\RAD Studio XE2 (Delphi Win3..." as expected.
Please update the location.

Installed location:
C:\Program Files\ElevateDB 2 VCL-STD\RAD Studio XE2 (Delphi Win32
Unicode)\help\edb2rsdelphiwin32unixe2.hxs
------------------------------------

For info: that file does indeed exist in that location, along with
..elh, .hxc, .hxi, .hxt, .ini, and .pdf files with the same name. Same
for edb2sql.

Dominique

I have given up trying to use Help in Delphi. It is a pity but the MS based help system is really useless. It crashes, fails to find all the help resources available on a machine, searches random locations (including C# on-line help which you absolutely don't need!). Bin it.

For Delphi related help I use the Embarcadero DocWiki:

www.docwiki.embarcadero.com/RADStudio/en/Main_Page

What I do for EDB is that I have installed the EDB "Delphi Component Reference" as a help file in EDBManager.

To do this Open EDBMgr, Menu, File, Preferences, select "Help" tab, click white "new file" button in bottom corner of window and find the file:

C:\Program Files (x86)\ElevateDB 2 VCL-CS\RAD Studio XE2 (Delphi Win32)\help\edb2rsdelphiwin32xe2.elh

(Note that it may be installed in a different directory, and if you have a different version of EDB (i.e. XE3, 4, 5 etc) it will have a different file name.

Once you've done this you have a really full and decent "Developer Help" manual for Delphi built into EDB Manager which is pretty searchable ...

I know this is not as good as context sensitive help, but it is a lot better than the existing Delphi help.

Adam

Dominique,

<< I was afraid you'd ask that. Have you ever seen the Seinfeld episode
featuring "yadayadayada?" >>

Oh yeah, we own every season of Seinfeld.

<< For info: that file does indeed exist in that location, along with .elh,
..hxc, .hxi, .hxt, .ini, and .pdf files with the same name. Same for edb2sql.
>>

My recommendation would be to use this tool:

http://www.helpwaregroup.com/products/h2viewer

and see if anything weird pops up that may indicate what the issue is.  It's
a little better about error messages, etc., but it may be hampered by the
fact that it has to use the MS Help 2 COM objects also.

Let me know if that helps at all.

Tim Young
Elevate Software
www.elevatesoft.com

Tim Young [Elevate Software] wrote:
> http://www.helpwaregroup.com/products/h2viewer
>
> and see if anything weird pops up that may indicate what the issue
> is.

When I try to open edb help, I get "Error opening namespace
"ms-help://edb2".

Thx for any pointers.

Dominique,

<< When I try to open edb help, I get "Error opening namespace
"ms-help://edb2". >>

Hmmm, I'm at a loss here.  "edb2" is the correct namespace, but for some
reason it's corrupted or messed up.  The best answer that I've been able to
find regarding repairing such corruption, is to do a Repair on the base
product that installed the MS Help 2 namespaces via the Control Panel.  Are
you just using RAD Studio, or do you have Visual Studio installed also ?

Tim Young
Elevate Software
www.elevatesoft.com