DTHELPVIEW(1)

📦
version 2.5.3 · 2 versions
, in nixos 26.05

💖 dthelpview — come look at a CDE help volume, bestie 💖

okay so real talk, this one lives in the user cmd section of the manual, and it's genuinely iconic. dthelpview is the little utility that lets you view CDE online Help volumes, plain old ASCII files, or manual pages. 🎀

It's not some random side quest either — dthelpview is a whole integral part of the CDE application Help environment. Its functionality and user interface is almost completely that of the standard CDE general Help and quick Help dialog widgets. (See DtCreateHelpDialog(3) and DtCreateHelpQuickDialog(3) if you want the lore. 💅)

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

dthelpview [options]

That's it. That's the whole vibe. Options only, no positional args, no cap. 🦋

🌸 OPTIONS 🌸

The following options are available — and yes, we're listing every single one, because we don't do "skip the boring parts" in this house:

  • -helpVolume volume — Specifies the name of the &<filename>.sdl file you want to view. If locationId is not set, the default _HOMETOPIC ID is used. If the requested volume is in the current working directory, or the Help volume has been properly registered, no path is required. ✨
  • -locationId location_id — Specifies the location ID representing the desired Help topic to be viewed. By default, Helpview uses _HOMETOPIC if an ID is not specified. 🎯
  • -file file — Specifies a particular ASCII text file to be displayed. 🍓
  • -manPage man_page — Specifies a particular man page to be displayed. 📖
  • -man — Displays a dialog that prompts for a man page to view, then displays the requested man page. Interactive king behavior, honestly. 👑

💜 ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES 💜

The CDE Help system uses two environment variables for locating Help volumes and Family files within the desktop environment. Two. Not one. Keep up bestie:

  • DTHELPSEARCHPATH — System search path environment variable for locating Help volumes on local and remote nfs mounted systems. 🌈
  • DTHELPUSERSEARCHPATH — Users search path environment variable for locating user specific Help volumes on local and remote nfs mounted systems. 💫

The environment variables contain colon-separated lists of directory paths. Each directory path can contain both environment variable names as well as special field descriptors that are expanded at runtime via each Help component that uses these environment variables. (Yes, runtime expansion. It's giving ✨dynamic✨.)

Field descriptors consist of a % followed by a single character. Field descriptors and their substitution values are:

  • %H — This value is replaced with the current volume name being searched for. 🔍
  • %L — Replaced with the current value of the LANG environment variable. 🌍
  • %% — Replaced with a single %. Cute lil escape, love that for us. 💅

The default value for DTHELPUSERSEARCHPATH is:

$HOME/.dt/help/$DTUSERSESSION/%H:
$HOME/.dt/help/$DTUSERSESSION/%H.sdl:
$HOME/.dt/help/$DTUSERSESSION/%H.hv:
$HOME/.dt/help/%H:
$HOME/.dt/help/%H.sdl:
$HOME/.dt/help/%H.hv

The DTHELPUSERSEARCH is first searched for the requested volume. If the volume is not found, the DTHELPSEARCHPATH value is searched. (First one, then the other. Order matters, bestie. 🫶)

The default value for DTHELPSEARCHPATH path is:

/nix/store/6waxpwr8lzfzc9ka48gl7yh60rqvlkdb-cde-2.5.3/etc/appconfig/help/%L/%H:
/nix/store/6waxpwr8lzfzc9ka48gl7yh60rqvlkdb-cde-2.5.3/etc/appconfig/help/%L/%H.sdl:
/nix/store/6waxpwr8lzfzc9ka48gl7yh60rqvlkdb-cde-2.5.3/etc/appconfig/help/%L/%H.hv:
/nix/store/6waxpwr8lzfzc9ka48gl7yh60rqvlkdb-cde-2.5.3/etc/appconfig/help/C/%H:
/nix/store/6waxpwr8lzfzc9ka48gl7yh60rqvlkdb-cde-2.5.3/etc/appconfig/help/C/%H.sdl:
/nix/store/6waxpwr8lzfzc9ka48gl7yh60rqvlkdb-cde-2.5.3/etc/appconfig/help/C/%H.hv:
/nix/store/6waxpwr8lzfzc9ka48gl7yh60rqvlkdb-cde-2.5.3/appconfig/help/%L/%H:
/nix/store/6waxpwr8lzfzc9ka48gl7yh60rqvlkdb-cde-2.5.3/appconfig/help/%L/%H.sdl:
/nix/store/6waxpwr8lzfzc9ka48gl7yh60rqvlkdb-cde-2.5.3/appconfig/help/%L/%H.hv:
/nix/store/6waxpwr8lzfzc9ka48gl7yh60rqvlkdb-cde-2.5.3/appconfig/help/C/%H:
/nix/store/6waxpwr8lzfzc9ka48gl7yh60rqvlkdb-cde-2.5.3/appconfig/help/C/%H.sdl:
/nix/store/6waxpwr8lzfzc9ka48gl7yh60rqvlkdb-cde-2.5.3/appconfig/help/C/%H.hv
those paths are long enough to be a personality trait, honestly 😭 but that's the actual default, so we respect it.

🦋 RESOURCES 🦋

For information on Help dialog widget resources, refer to DtCreateHelpDialog(3) or DtCreateHelpQuickDialog(3). 🔥

The dthelpview utility's specific resources set in the Dthelpview app-defaults file are:

Dthelpview*manBox*rows: 32
Dthelpview*manBox*columns: 80
Dthelpview*fileBox*rows: 32
Dthelpview*fileBox*columns: 80
Dthelpview*man_text.columns: 20

32 rows, 80 columns, and one little 20. Not me memorizing this. 🙈

🧚 FILE 🧚

Following files are used in conjunction with the dthelpview application:

  • Dthelpview — App-defaults file used by dthelpview. 🌟

⭐ EXAMPLES ⭐

okay these are the fun part, watch this:

dthelpview -helpVolume dtintro.sdl -locationId _hometopic

Displays the topic associated with _hometopic in the Help volume dtintor.sdl. 🎀

dthelpview -file /etc/checklist

Displays the file /etc/checklist in a general Help dialog. 🍓

dthelpview -man grep

Displays the grep man page in a quick Help dialog. Like, it's literally right there. Obsessed. 💖

👑 SEE ALSO 👑

dtsearchpath(1), CDE Help System Author's and Programmer's Guide.

that's the whole page bestie, you ate it periodt 💅✨

much love from the dthelpview(user cmd) corner of the manual 🫶 — that footer's got no fancy source/version line beyond the manual name and section, but it's iconic all the same 🌸💜
📦 where this page comes from